India, US to keep talking about visa, double taxation issues

30-10-2015 Fri 10:52 | International | IANS

Washington, Oct 30: India and the US have agreed to continue their engagement on the vexed issue of a totalization agreement for the purpose of avoiding double taxation of income with respect to social security taxes. "There is steady progress on the issue," Minister of State for Commerce & Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman told Indian media Thursday even as she called the US insistence on a "comparable social security cover in India" as "unfair." She was speaking after a meeting of the US-India Trade Policy Forum (TPF), co-chaired by her and the US Trade Representative, Michael Froman. Indian workers have contributed over $6 billion towards social security and the figure keeps growing by about $1.5 billion annually. But in the absence of a totalisation agreement they don't get the money back once they return to India. Sitharaman said she had told her interlocutors in Washington that social security cover in India need not be comparable for the purposes of a totalisation agreement as in the Indian system it was the family which provided security to the jobless and the elderly. India and the US have also agreed to continue their engagement on another issue of concern to India - the limitations on mobility of skilled professionals and issues concerning H1B and L1 visas, including the spike in rejection rates of L-1 visas. Sitharaman said the US response to Indian concerns on the visa issue was positive. It had also assured India that the hike in visa fee was not discriminatory. Sitharaman underlined the openness of India to understand the recently concluded Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement and its implications for bilateral and regional trade. At the request of India, USTR provided a detailed presentation on the TPP. A Joint Statement on the Trade Policy Forum said the two sides reviewed substantive progress achieved in deepening bilateral trade and investment goals in 2015 and discussed plans to promote economic growth and job creation in both India and the US.