The price of everything

I was distraught as I filled up the new income tax return form, which, thanks...

I was distraught as I filled up the new income tax return form, which, thanks to the finance minister’s rhetoric of simplification, had become a several-page monstrosity, rather than the two-page ‘saral’ form that remained in use for years. My anger was justified, since it was the first time I had to sweat it out and spend money to get a form. And if that was not enough, the guidance to fill this form also came at a price.

If money is pouring into the finance minister’s tax kitty like flood water, that doesn’t mean money has started growing on trees for the common man as well, whatever the minister may think. The tax-return preparer (the current FM’s brainchild) charges Rs 250, which may be an insignificant amount for some, but means a lot for a man with an annual income of one lakh rupees, which is the threshold limit for filing returns. He can get his cell phone refilled twice, or meet his month’s requirement of petrol, and for a railway commuter in Mumbai it is his quarterly pass fare.

It seems that the finance minister wants to be remembered for his unique concept of multiple taxes. First pay income tax, then pay service tax on all services you avail yourself of, right from the telephone to the letter you send by courier or speed post. That’s not all. You are liable to pay service tax on the ground, rent charges for raising a tent for the marriage of your daughter, and so on. The funniest part is that after having done all this, the FM claims that the common man is spared, though he knows perfectly well that all agencies, whether private or government, pass on the service tax to the consumer, and that ultimately it is the common man who is affected.

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Does the FM make the case that after getting a telephone one ceases to be an aam aadmi? Or that a common man doesn’t need space to perform the marriage of his daughter?

I was preoccupied with such troubling thoughts and questions. And then, over a cup of tea I ventured to share my feelings with a friend, who retorted, “You are not being fair to the FM. He is concerned with the common man as any other politician. Can’t you see he has not touched the cremation grounds and cemeteries?” Tax relief!

‘Bangladeshis’ and ‘ghuspaithiyas’: BJP MP Brij Lal stops five sanitation workers on road in to quiz them on video

‘Bangladeshis’, ‘ghuspaithiyas’: On camera, BJP MP quizzes 5 sanitation workers

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BJP MP and former UP DGP Brij Lal has sparked controversy with a video accusing five sanitation workers in Lucknow's Gomti Nagar Extension of being Bangladeshi infiltrators. Lal, a former IPS officer, claims to know how terrorism works and alleges that these workers are a threat to the nation. He appeals to CM Yogi Adityanath to deport them and claims they have fake identities.

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