Government to Tax Students taking up Overseas Jobs
The Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry is planning a graduate tax or exit tax on students who take up overseas jobs after passing out from higher education institutions and their recruiters.
HRD minister, Arjun Singh spoke about it at a lecture he delivered at the University of Mumbai, but refused to divulge the rate at which the tax will be imposed, Business Standard reported on August 25, 2007.
If the Graduate Tax is a policy handed down as a directive by the HRD ministry, all institutes including the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) will have to comply with it. At present, recruiters pay a service tax of around 12.2 per cent on the total amount earmarked for student packages.
Service tax was levied on premier higher education institutes from November 2006 by the Central Board for Excise and Customs (CBEC). In this wake, these institutes had hiked their placement fee also.
During placements 2007, IIM Ahmedabad placed 63 students overseas from a batch size of 235 students. IIM Calcutta placed 58 students overseas from a batch size of 251; IIM Kozhikode placed 21 students from a batch size of 156; IIM Lucknow placed 19 students from a batch size of 280 and Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies placed 18 students from a batch of 124 students.
