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8226; This refers to A tax by any other name The Sunday Express, April 27. When P Chidambaram was Union Finance Minister, I recall having...

May 4, 2003 12:00 AM IST

5 min read

8226; This refers to A tax by any other name The Sunday Express, April 27. When P Chidambaram was Union Finance Minister, I recall having suggested through newspaper columns a well-publicised Voluntary Disclosure Scheme together with lowering of Income Tax to maximum 30 percent. It was coupled with a firm decision to initiate stringent measures to curb currency-circulation in a manner that people would find excess currency as 8216;paper8217; of no practical use to initiate a new era of voluntary and honest tax compliance. Such a combination would have checked latent tax of inflation automatically. But while first two measures found place in the Union Budget, no move was there to replace currency circulation by bank transactions. All sale-purchases above say Rs 10,000 may be through cheques even though payment might be done in parts to avoid costly purchases from black money. All business expenses above Rs 1,000 may be termed admissible expenses under Income Tax laws only if they are paid by cheques/drafts. Bills of necessities like telephone, electricity, water and municipal charges above Rs 1,000 may also be compulsorily paid through cheques. To avoid 8216;benami8217; drafts being misused as carriers of black money, their validity may be reduced to 45 days with name, address/account number printed on them. Cash withdrawals above say Rs 20,000 in a day from a bank account may be on special withdrawal forms to be mentioned in audit reports with reasons for withdrawal.
8212; Subhash Chandra Agrawal

8226; I agree with Tavleen Singh8217;s License raj, with retro effect The Sunday Express, April 27. Her writing should be an eye opener to the NDA government. I wish to make the following observation. Recently, with my friend who is a garment export unit employee, I visited the Excise office in the Capital for the new excise registration of his unit. And Tavleen Singh8217;s observation 8216;8216;8230;registration with Excise Department will bring money not into the government coffers but into the pocket of excise inspectors8217;8217; turned out to be absolutely true. It seems to me that the garment export owners are helpless if they refuse to pay up. It seems the finance ministry out to convert all honest and disciplined companies to be dishonest and corrupt through their 8216;8216;License raj8217;8217;.
8212; Bidyut Kumar Chatterjee

8226; This refers to Tavleen Singh8217;s Licence raj, with retro effect. Paradoxical it may seem, it is a fact that despite more than 50 years of our own rule and innovative, progressive changes in our administrative system, we remain one of the worst-governed people in the world. We are perhaps also the most exploited people by a bureaucracy that is inefficient and corrupt. Ours is a system of governance where policies are framed not to tackle a problem or to translate into action some long-term policy or a national vision, but they are framed to benefit a few persons or groups of vested interests. Naturally our administrators are always successful in keeping the discontent of one or the other section of the society to a boiling point so that they have opportunity of framing yet more policies and programmes. Therein lies the working of the whole system, pleasing and displeasing one or the other political, casteist or religious groups of the society. It is disgusting that even after 50 years of Independence we have neither developed a clear vision of the socio-economic goals nor have we adopted any simplification of the procedural hassles that any industry or trade has to face. This uncertainty of approach are distinctly seen in the frequent 8216;8216;rollback8217;8217; decisions of the government in almost every sphere of policy making.
8212; Ved Guliani

8226; With reference to your article on License raj and it8217;s 8216;8216;untoward side-effects,8217;8217; I am compelled to share my experience. My father started a pharmaceutical business in Hyderabad and by hard work and honesty, he has been successful. But vultures go where there have a prey. He8217;s been getting 8216;8216;visits8217;8217; from Central excise, state excise, drug enforcement people, commercial taxes, and income tax sleuths on a daily basis. And their chief excuse for the frequent visits is 8216;8216;You are doing so good so what is it in for us8217;8217;.
8212; Hari Vemulapalli

8226; Apropos your column, names like Dharam and Mr Bharat caught my attention as I have seen most of their movies in my teens. At that time, they certainly aroused the emotions that call for the upliftment of the downtrodden. Your column has exposed our babus and their concoction of various schemes to plunder money. Yes, there are unscrupulous industrialists, but they have been forced to evade taxes by our babus.
8212; Pradip Shah

8226; P Chidambaram rightly says that 8216;8216;In layman8217;s language, inflation is the worst form of taxation.8217;8217; A tax by any other name, April 27. For the common man, a Budget is always a big disappointment. It8217;s common experience that there is always deficit financing in every budget 8212; which always results in inflation. Expenses are more than revenue, so the result is is inflation. In every budget, the poor made to require to pay more taxes 8212; in the form of new taxes or reduction in benefits of taxation 8212; just to generate more revenue, instead of curtailing wasteful government expenditure. Recently the taxation burden on common men has become too much 8212; more and more new levies are introduced and rates of different kinds of essential and unavoidable expenditure is increased manifold. All this when the income levels of common men mostly remain static.
8212; Mahesh Kapasi

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