Beware of ponzi apps, finfluencers, says Finance minister

BENGALURU: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday cautioned consumers against financial influencers (finfluencers) and warned that several apps offering financial schemes are ponzi scams, which is being dealt with by the finance ministry along with the ministry of electronics & IT and the RBI.
“We are clamping down on them like never before. We don’t want those ponzi apps taking away people’s hardearned money,” she said.
Speaking at an event in Bengaluru, the FM said there was no proposal before her to regulate finfluencers, her statement comes months after Sebi’s move to regulate social media influencers. Countries such as Australia and the UK are also cracking down on influencers advertising financial products on social media.
“If there are three or four people giving free objective good advice, there are seven others who are driven by other considerations,” Sitharaman said.
Social influencers, financial influencers are all outthere, she said. “But a very strong sense of caution is required in each one of us to make sure that you double check, talk to people, and don’t just flock to something. We have to be careful. It’s our hard-earned money. ”
Sitharaman also said that the government has taken several steps to widen the tax base, while ruling out any move to tax agricultural income.
“We are not increasing taxation but bringing it down. We are also giving a parallel scheme, where there are no exemptions and the rate is very low…. Changes have been brought to encourage people to come into the tax fold. For a truly salaried person, tax gets deducted. But for some others, who spend on foreign travel or (undertake) a huge expense on buying a car or a property, we do have tax deduction (at source). The deduction is not with the intentof putting a higher burden, but with an intent to reconcile this,” the FM said.
While acknowledging that there are some non-salaried who paid the TDS but did not file returns, Sitharaman said there was greater tracking and an awareness campaign was also introduced. “Tax is being paid for a national cause, to build roads and hospitals. But it cannot only be on the salaried class because their income is traceable. We are doing a lot of campaigns. At the same time, we are trying to get closer (to the non-salaried) through these measures. The salaried class sometimes feel why they are only burdened and not others are questioned. They should remember that the government is approaching others as well, big expenditures are now being taxed, they’re paying TDS,” she said.