Budgets should be Invisible ...Transparent actually .I dont know when we will stop making a song and dance about them . To begin with, how many of us understand the Budget? I dont . Most of the time I look for stuff that could either save us taxes or reduce costs. Most years, neither happen. But, ummed pe ab tak kayam hun ..Hope springs eternal in the human heart. So Year after year its the same story ...the day starts with tuning into CNBC,listening to analysts ,all those expectations ,then the budget speech ,(most of which goes above my head ). Then the post-mortem..even the adjectives the channels use are the same every year..Man ! I am so bored with this whole exercise . Dont we know? ..none of the FMs like the middle class(thats us ).All they do is talk about the poor (who dont even know what Budget means).It sounds good and VOTEically correct. And seeing the terrible poverty all around us, we shut up when taxes are increased in the name of the poor. Whether the money ever reaches the poor is another matter altogether. They rob Peter ,but does Paul ever get paid?? I am sure ,the middle class would happily cough up taxes ,if we saw it being honestly utilized .Its the corruption and misuse of our money which gets our goat and gives us heart burn. Tax is a problem in every country. In some countries the old get some of what they have paid back in the form of social security (USA) or even in the form of free public health care (Canada). In India, we have neither. The fact is, a centralized disbursement of taxes is a failed concept in a deeply corrupt and politicized country like India. How many times has Delhi got a face-lift with our money? There is no public healthcare to speak of.And at regular intervals you have the the likes of Raja and Kalmadi pop up and generously loot the exchequer..then go scot free to live to loot another day. Does anyone know how much Tax we are paying ? All I know is most of the middle class,Mango ppl (Aam admi) like me are Paying a) Income Tax b) Excise duty c) VAT ( Sales Tax) , d)Education Cess , e)Property Tax . f)Entertainment Tax g)Service Tax etc etc...if you calculate all of this ..how much do we end up paying ?if we include the absurd amount of indirect taxes on everything we buy or sell? Well some wag did say .. Nothing is certain, except death and taxes! This time its the Modi budget . Both Peter and Paul have voted them to power...and await Achche Din! As for me , with my portfolio budgetly loaded...I await the lungi dance...sorry that should read nifty dance! Picture sourced from the net.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 04:44:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015