The row over tax domicile status of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy’s daughter Akshata Murthy has stirred a lot of interest in India. It is natural because she is married to Chancellor Rishi Sunak who is of Indian origin and whose political career has seen a meteoric rise. It is also natural that different people see things in different ways, perhaps influenced by their own political allegiances.
Briefly put, Akshata Murthy (Sunak) took advantage of a provision in UK tax law that allowed her to skip paying UK taxes on her overseas (non-UK) income. Since most of that income happens to be from her ownership of Infosys shares, it is essentially Indian sourced income. Although she is likely to have various other sources of secondary income that derives from her primary source.
Countries tax income differently. Some, like India, tax global income for residents and local source income for non-residents. Many, like USA, tax global income even if you are a non-resident after giving a high initial exemption. UK allows you to choose domicile based on a concept of “permanent home” while India has complex stay and citizenship or origin based rule to decide who is a non-resident and hence exempt from tax on global income.
This provision was not written into law by Rishi and certainly not something that is for his family alone to enjoy. I am no global tax expert but it would seem major changes were made in 2015, narrowing the scope of the concession, when Rishi Sunak was just a newcomer MP. It is just the way UK taxation works. But a great hoo-ha has been created in British media about proletariat’s suffering even as the super-rich enjoy tax breaks. This narrative has been embraced by the woke left in the USA as well and is currently in fashion. It allows Biden and the left to get away with incompetence and gross mismanagement of everything from foreign policy to high inflation and persistent COVID mess. And of course, a series of gaffes and obvious display of senility that makes shehzade look like a towering intellectual giant. Spreading hate against “rich” is always a nice trick to use.
Of course, Indian left intellectual ecosystem too sheds copious tears for the suffering subaltern unless of course, fascist dynasties are ruling and looting, and they get tickets to board the gravy train. Then “idea of India” takes over and economic growth, poverty, lack of roads, food, medicine, schools, jobs and electricity no longer matters.
It is therefore not surprising leftist daily Hindu has tried to present the issue as one of “equity” – therefore nothing to do with her race. The left in UK has been making a song and dance about the matter. Given the support extended by UK left media ecosystem to Indian left and the causes of corrupt dynasties and Islamists our left has embraced, it is not good manners if such support is not reciprocated.
In doing so, Hindu’s op-ed writer chooses to twist Ms. Murthy’s statement about “international tax” by trying to cleverly point out that there is ‘no international tax’. Yes, there isn’t but it is just semantics. What Akshata obviously meant is that she pays tax in other countries. In the case of India, dividend is certainly taxable. In fact, dividend paid out of tax paid income is usually not considered income at all in many countries, but India chooses to tax it twice because, well, it can. That’s how our taxation works – on whims and not principles or natural justice. If our babus and netas can find a way to tax the same income three times they will. Most countries tax locally earned income regardless of how liberal they are with other tax matters.
For example, a UK pop singer performing for a few days in Singapore must pay tax on that income in Singapore. India of course, is quite strict about taxing local income of any kind. As far as income other than dividend that she may earn in India, that is taxed without any consideration of whether she is a Mongolian or UK resident. So legally speaking Murthy is right in saying her non-UK income is taxed. If she earns it in USA, there is no way it will escape tax unless she is evading.
Incidentally, as a US resident (green card holder) she has to pay tax on her global income to Uncle Sam. Which is exactly why it is the poor and middle class that chase green cards and not the super rich. In fact the rich try to find innovative ways to rid themselves of US or for that matter European residency! It is also blatantly unfair to allege that the Chancellor and his wife “circumvented” their own rules. Enjoying benefit of an existing rule that predates their acquisition of any political office, and that which Labour governments too left in the statute books, is by no means illegal. Of course, our left has many arrows in their quiver. “Ethics” is one such.
If it is ethical indeed to expropriate income and essentially plunder it like a Robin Hood or Zorro without any legal basis, why not force Pelosi, Sanders, Kerry and other multi-millionaire leftists in positions of power or office too forced to handover their wealth? It is nice of Ms Murthy to volunteer to pay essentially double tax on same income. It is actually triple, if you consider that Infosys pays tax on profits before paying dividend which is again taxed in the hands of recipient in India and now again in UK!).
To accuse her of impropriety using vague “ethics” etc is just politics. It is weird that Hindu OpEd makes a big fuss about their ability to “re-locate to the US should things not work out”. Ever heard anyone from the left say that of our dynasties? Furthermore, if UK stays in the EU as most of the left wants, every UK citizen can anytime, relocate to a country in EU of his or her choice! Even now, it is much easier for a UK citizen to migrate elsewhere than it is for an Indian. On the contrary, Vir Sanghvi writing in ThePrint India, takes a diametrically opposite stance – that Murthy is taxed because she is brown. And he is much closer to the truth. But he misses a nuance – that the Sunaks are Hindu which cancels their minority status in the eyes of Hinduphobic antisemitic left.
Many questions come to our mind. How many labour MPs, supporters and leaders have taken advantage of such provisions? Why is she being singled out? If she pays tax twice over will such rule be enforced on every politician going forward? Will it be written into law or the lynch mob woke left ecosystem decides who will get away and who will pay? What other common principles of justice or benefits of law should we deny to Hindus and especially conservatives? Should they be denied benefits of double taxation agreements? Rule of “double jeopardy” that says you cannot be punished for same crime twice should not apply to Hindu Indian conservative politicians and their wives? Will that be next? Or that they should be presumed guilty and simply burnt at the stake like in the old days of witchcraft which is exactly what woke left has reduced itself to? Narayana Murthy and his family has been funding various fringe leftist causes for reasons unknown. Perhaps because of his leftist leanings which he has not hesitated to admit.
Perhaps he thinks Stalinist Maoist left ideology, that has produced nothing other than misery, environmental devastation, mass murders, rapist savagery and a long line of murderous despots like Pol Pot, Kim dynasty and Stalin is what India needs. Perhaps it is just a jizya to buy peace from left’s pseudo intellectuals, academicians, and fake activists that controls “liberal” narratives and who can be a nuisance if not kept happy.
It somewhat strange his family faces attacks from the left ecosystem. Larger interests are involved now – the need to bring down Boris Johnson regime. Moreover, as we pointed earlier, she and Rishi are Hindus, and have not publicly renounced their faith or wear “ashamed to be” on their sleeves or offer anti-Hindu soundbites. Hence her brown racial minority victimhood card gets nullified in the eyes of the left ecosystem.
For leftist all weather, sweeter than honey allies of jihadists and Islamists, Hindu phobia is a natural extension of their antisemitism. May be most of Akshata’s problems would go away if she were a Khan. But there is another hitch. Rishi is a conservative. Even bigger no-no. As any Muslim or Dalit supporter of BJP facing venomous hate, social boycotts and even violence in the hands of the corrupt fascist dynasties – Islamists – Stalinist left continuum and its media ecosystem that passes for “liberal” in India can tell you, that’s almost treacherous.
Sorry Akshata, you are toast. And so is Rishi! My suggestion to you is to convert and join the woke left. Then you can avoid paying taxes, raise funds in the name of some dubious charity and pocket the proceeds. Entire left ummah will support you.
