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Five questions for Rahul Gandhi on his sudden love for distressed home buyers

RAHUL GANDHI SHASHI THAROORVivek Kaul

Rahul Gandhi is on a learning spree these days. Yesterday he learnt that Indian middle class also has a problem. A report in The Indian Express points out Rahul as saying: “Mujhe aaj kuch seekhne ko mila. Meri soch thi ki zameen ke mamle pe kisan ko, mazdoor ko, adivasiyon ko dabaya jaata hain. Magar aaj mujhe seekhne ko mila, zameen ke mamle pe middle class logon ko bhi dabaya jaata hai. (I learnt something today. So far, I used to think that only farmers, labourers and tribals are suppressed in land matters. But today I learnt that the middle class is also suppressed).”
The Gandhi family scion said this after meeting distressed home buyers in the National Capital Region. That he did not know that the issue of “land” also impacts the country’s middle class, after having been an MP for more than a decade, is a clear indicator of how well connected he has been with issues that concern the people of this country. But yes he is trying and it’s never too late.
Rahul also said: “They are told that you will get the flat on a particular day but for years they don’t get the flat. They are told the super duper area of the flat would be so much but what is delivered is different.”
There are multiple questions that crop up here. The situation that these home buyers are in currently, did not crop up over the last one year of the Narendra Modi government. It has been work in progress since 2008. So why has Rahul woken up to it now? The answer is fairly straightforward. This sudden concern for the middle class home buyer is a part of the Rahul relaunch.
The second question is how have all these builders managed to get away with taking money from the buyers and not delivering homes even many years later. Rahul met distressed home buyers from the National Capital Region. The Congress party was in power in Haryana (parts of which come under the National Capital Region) for an extended period of time. What did this government do for distressed home buyers in the city of Gurgaon, which is a part of the National Capital Region?
The third question is how have real estate builders in this country managed to have a free run for all these years. When almost every form of investment in this country is regulated, be it mutual funds, stocks, insurance, derivatives and so on, how has real estate managed to be given a free run for so long? The Congress party has been in power at the centre in every decade since independence. Why did it do nothing on this front all these years? Why was the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill introduced only as late as 2013? This after the Congress led UPA government had been in power in Delhi for nine years. Maybe, Rahul can explain all this to the people of this country as well, the next time he decided to speak to the media.
The fourth question is that when opening something as simple as a savings bank account requires multiple documents, why can real estate be almost be bought over the counter, as long as the buyer is willing to pay in cash? How did the system evolve in the way it has? Guess, Rahul can speak to his seniors in the Congress party and maybe they can give him an answer.
The fifth question is what has Rahul’s Congress party done to control the amount of black money being generated in the country, in all the years that it has been in power. As per the Global Financial Integrity report titled Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2003-2012, around $439.6 billion of black money left the Indian shores, between 2003 and 2012. If this was the amount of black money that left the Indian shores, imagine the kind of black money that must have been generated during the period.
The Congress led UPA government was in power for much of this period. A substantial portion of the black money that is generated finds its way into real estate, driving up prices and making things very difficult for genuine home buyers who want to buy homes to live in them.
This has led to a situation where the real estate market has totally become investor driven. What did the Congress led UPA government do about this in the ten years that it has been in power?
To conclude, since Rahul Gandhi is in a learning phase, it’s time he saw Yash Chopra’s 1965 classic Waqt. And in it he should concentrate on a dialogue written by Akhtar-Ul-Iman and spoken by Raj Kumar in the movie, which goes like this: “Chinoi Seth…jinke apne ghar sheeshe ke hon, wo dusron par pathar nahi feka karte(Chinoi Seth…those who live in glass houses don’t throw stones at others).”

(Vivek Kaul is the author of the Easy Money trilogy. He tweets @kaul_vivek) 

The column originally appeared on DailyO on May 4, 2015

Recover black money from India first, Modi. Instead of making noises about what lies in Swiss banks

Vivek Kaul

Narendra Modi and his government have had quite a fascination for the black money that leaves the country. Black money is essentially money that has been earned, but on which a tax has not been paid.
During the electoral campaign for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Modi promised that all the black money that had left Indian shores would be recovered and Rs 15 lakh deposited in the bank accounts of every Indian. Later Amit Shah, the president of the BJP, dismissed this as a chunavi jumla.
In the budget presented in February 2015, the finance minister Arun Jaitley focussed on black money and said: “The problems of poverty and inequity cannot be eliminated unless generation of black money and its concealment is dealt with effectively and forcefully.”
At the same time Jaitley unleashed a series of measures to counter the menace of black money leaving the shores of this country. “Concealment of income and assets and evasion of tax in relation to foreign assets will be prosecutable with punishment of rigorous imprisonment upto 10 years,” was one of the measures that Jaitley spoke about during the course of his speech.
Recently, the Income Tax department issued new income tax forms which asked for a plethora of information from individuals travelling abroad. This was again seen as a step to curb black money. These forms had to be withdrawn after a wave of public protests.
As per the Global Financial Integrity report titled Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2003-2012, around $439 billion of black money left the Indian shores, between 2003 and 2012. What is interesting is that in 2003 the total amount of black money leaving India had stood at $10.1 billion. By 2012, this had jumped more than nine times to around $94.8 billion. In comparison, the money leaving China during the same period grew by less than four times during this period.
Given this, one really can’t blame the government for being overtly worried about the black money leaving the country. Also, black money that remains in the country has some benefits. Cambridge University economist Ha-Joon Chang explains this in his book Bad Samaritans—The Guilty Secrets of Rich Nations and the Threat to Global Prosperity, in the context of a minister taking a bribe (which is also black money, given that the minister is not going to declare the bribe as an income).
As he writes: “A bribe is a transfer of wealth from one person to another. It does not necessarily have negative effects on economic efficiency and growth.” If the minister taking the bribe decides to spend/invest that money in the country, it has a positive impact on economic growth, as the spending creates economic demand and the investment creates jobs. At least in theory, the idea seems to make sense.
In comparison, the black money leaving the country is a total waste. As Chang writes: “A critical issue…is whether the dirty money stays in the country. If the bribe is deposited in a Swiss bank, it cannot contribute to creating further income and jobs through investment—which is one way odious money can partially ‘redeem’ itself.”
Once we take this factor into account Modi government’s crackdown on black money leaving the shores of the country starts to make immense sense. But the question is how good are the chances of recovering the money that has already left the shores?
There is a great belief in India that all the black money is lying with banks in Switzerland. But this belief is incorrect. As Chang writes: “Switzerland is not a country living off black money deposited in its secretive banks…It is, in fact, literally the most industrialized country in the world.”
Data released by the Swiss National Bank, the central bank of Switzerland, suggests that Indian money in Swiss banks was at around Rs 14,000 crore in 2013. In 2006, the total amount had stood at Rs 41,000 crore.
The reason for this fall is simple. Over the last few years as black money and Switzerland have come into focus, it would be stupid for individuals or companies sending black money out of India, to keep sending it to Switzerland.
There are around 70 tax havens all over the world. And so this money could be anywhere. Getting all this money back would involve a lot of international diplomacy and cooperation. Also, the question is why would tax havens return this money. The economies of many tax havens run because of this black money and no one undoes a business model that is working.
An estimate made by the International Monetary Fund suggests that around $18 trillion of wealth lies in international tax havens other than Switzerland and beyond the reach of any tax authorities. Some of this money must have definitely originated in India.
Long story short—it would be next to impossible to get back any of this black money.
Now let’s get back to domestic black money. As per Chang this money if invested properly can create jobs as well as economic growth. In the Indian case a lot of this money gets invested into gold and real estate. Money going into gold does not create any jobs. And money that goes into real estate has driven up home prices in particular, all over the country, to extremely high levels. Most middle class Indians cannot afford to buy a home now.
Given this, it makes tremendous sense for the government to crack down on domestic black money, instead of making noises about recovering black money that has already left the shores of this country. Further, focus should be on ensuring that the number of people paying income tax goes up in the years to come.
In short, the black money menace first needs to be tackled domestically.

(Vivek Kaul is the author of the Easy Money trilogy. He tweets @kaul_vivek)

The column originally appeared on DailyO on Apr 27,2015