Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said more and more Indians were now investing in stock markets and their household savings must be ringfenced. At a BSE event, the finance minister red flagged growing retail participation in the derivatives market. At the same event, a stock market broker raised concerns about the hefty taxes imposed on both stock market transactions and real estate purchases. He humorously compared the government's role to that of a "sleeping partner," implying that while investors take on the risks, the government continues to profit through various taxes such as GST, IGST, Stamp duty, Securities Transaction Tax (STT), and Long Term Capital Gains (LTCG) Tax.
The broker questioned Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman about the significant tax burden on investors and the lack of support for individuals with limited financial resources to afford housing. He questioned Nirmala Sitharaman on how the government is helping those with limited resources to buy a house and how a broker can function with taxes being put by the government. Responding to the question, Nirmala Sitharaman said, “I don't have a response to this.” She quipped, “A sleeping partner cannot answer sitting here."
Sitharaman appealed to BSE to work closely with SEBI in order to ensure stringent compliance and robust regulatory standards to ensure investor confidence remained intact and to play a proactive role in promoting higher standards of corporate governance among listed companies. “Household savings have made a generational shift (from traditional instruments to equities), and we want to safeguard that,” Sithraman said. “Exchanges need to ensure market stability, mitigate systemic risks, and adopt technology in the form of blockchain, AI, and big data to improve market efficiency.”
Sitharaman also assured Dalal Street about the stability and majority of the next Modi government. Discounting the recent volatility in market and the heavy selloff by foreign investors, the minister, while addressing business editors here Tuesday said, “I inherently believe that the stock market and its conduct is on its wisdom. It has its own assessment of the situations.. The market watches the global situations and other stock market situations very closely and behaves on its own wisdom. But all I can assure you and everyone out there is that there is absolutely no need for investors to worry about the outcome of the ongoing polls.