Amend I-T law for women gifted assets by husband: Maneka Gandhi

Union minister of women and child development Maneka Gandhi has written to her finance ministry counterpart Piyush Goyal to bring about changes in the Income Tax Act so as not to tax assets that are gifted to women by their husbands. Gandhi took to Twitter to announce that she has urged Goyal to examine and amend Section 64 of the Act to bring in necessary changes.

In a tweet on Monday, Gandhi said that the "onus of ensuring economic empowerment of our women lies on each of us". She added that she wrote to Goyal after several requests from women, especially wives and daughters-in-law, came to her.

"Section 64 of the #IncomeTax Act deals with clubbing of incomes and provides that if a husband gifts an asset to his wife and the asset results in some income to the wife, the income will be added to the taxable income of the husband," she wrote in a series of tweets.

"The provision was originally formulated in 1960s under the assumption that wives and daughter-in-law would normally not have any independent taxable income. However, today, with women leaving an indelible mark in every field, the Act seems to have an adverse effect," read another tweet.

She further added that as per several requests made to her, women wrote to her that husbands and fathers-in-law are apprehensive to transfer assets to women in their families because they fear that income accruing from the asset will ultimately become a burden on them.

This is the second request that Gandhi has put across to Goyal in the past week. She had earlier written to him, urging him to do away of the applicant's father's name as a requisite element while applying for Permanent Account Number (PAN) cards, keeping in mind the sensitivity of single, divorced and separated women.