Foreign Travel Tax Rumours Explained: What PM Modi Said, What Govt Sources Claimed

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to social media on Friday night to fact check the claims of a prospective tax, cess or surcharge on foreign travels by a media report. In a rare act, taking to social media, the PM debunked the speculation around any tax or cess on foreign travel. He wrote, "This is totally false. Not an iota of truth in this. There is no question of putting such restrictions on foreign travel. We remain committed to improving ‘Ease of Doing Business’ and ‘Ease of Living’ for our people."The media report, that was withdrawn by the media house later, had claimed that Govt is considering tax/cess/surcharge on foreign travel’ but no final decision has been taken yet. Government sources called this indulging in pure speculation and far

from facts.

This report had come in the backdrop of PM making an appeal to the Indian citizens to avoid unnecessary foreign travel for a year and save foreign exchange reserves. The government sources claimed that at a sensitive time when economies are under duress due to West Asia conflict. This cannot be operationalised, claimed a source. There were many questions raised about the claims made in the media reports by the sources too. "The basic question to be asked of the media outlet is how can foreign travel be a taxable event? How is it going to be taxed and at what source?" said the source. They said the report failed to answer so many questions like if government allegedly taxing the act of travelling abroad, buying a ticket, converting forex, spending overseas, or crossing immigration?And where will this tax/cess/surcharge be collected?"These are basic questions that could have been asked before spreading such fake news and had that been answered they would not have gone ahead with the speculation, " explained another source. The sources said that there is no uniformity in how people spend for foreign travel. Not all people buy forex in cash. Many travellers do use international debit cards, credit cards, forex cards, or spend directly abroad. "Then how would those be treated?," asked the source. In addition to this, there is no uniform system for booking tickets to foreign. Many book through foreign websites too. The sources stated that there are many who travel through road or rail to neighbouring countries and most of all can there be legality in levying such a cess or surcharge?The government sources said that these are turbulent times for every nation that is impacted by West Asia conflict and any speculation would be a disservice to the sincere efforts made by the government to lessen the impact on Indian citizens.