Arun Jaitley hints no cut in excise on oil, asks citizens to pay taxes

Union Minister Arun Jaitley today urged citizens to pay their due share of taxes "honestly" to reduce dependence on oil as a revenue source, and virtually ruled out any cut in excise duty on petrol and diesel saying it could prove to be counter-productive.

While salaried class pay their due share of taxes, Jaitley said "most other sections" have to improve their tax payment record, which is keeping India "far from being a tax-compliant society".

"My earnest appeal, therefore, to political leaders and opinion makers ...would be that evasion in the non-oil tax category must be stopped and, if people pay their taxes honestly, the high dependence on oil products for taxation eventually comes down. In the medium and long run, upsetting the fiscal maths can prove counter-productive," Jaitley said.

In a facebook post titled 'The Economy and the Markets Reward Structural Reforms and Fiscal Prudence', Jaitley said in last four years, central government's tax-GDP ratio has improved from 10 per cent to 11.5 per cent. Almost half of this, 0.72 per cent of GDP, accounts for an increase in non-oil tax-GDP ratio.