Trust, not Suspect !
By Pamarty Venkataramana
Presumption and Assumptions alone determine the huge bulk of cases clamped in millions of citizens in India by tax officials. This can be gauged by the real statistic that only two percent of cases filed by the income tax department are found to be upheld by court of law.
‘ Tax Raj ‘ has been the dragon beast which spit fire and spread havoc as well as hatred among the masses of a country that finds the cost of tax collection being almost more than the actual proceeds of tax collected. Tax raj has been the illegitimate baby of a red tape era where bureaucratic mandarins of the government ruled unquestioned.
Presumption and assumptions alone lead the tax official to clamp demand-notices as put to trial a tax payer or the non tax paying citizenry. Usually, it was practice to speculate and assess a likely income increase which the department concerned believes to have been not disclosed in any given year of returns being filed, over the preceding three years. Nowadays, it is observed that the span is being stretched to eight or nine preceding years. There is no rationale or constitutional dictate to this end but invariably subjective viewpoint leading to extremes of hardships, stigma as well as wasteful costs being incurred on part of the department itself as also the courts of law and appellate authorities. A counter-productive exercise as it appears in hindsight.
Still, the laws of taxation are as obsolete and tyrannical as being unequal in the political logic of equating a plush outhouse in a metropolitan city to agricultural farmhouse and exempting income under the category of -‘agricultural income’.
A #NewIndia is witnessing the welcome move of shifting from person oriented interface tax return assessment towards a system where all orders, notices and summons will be generated through the Income Tax Business Application Platform with a unique document identification number. Any notice or order which does not carry a electronically generated DIN will not be valid.
Tax payers, ostensibly, would no longer be harassed by such an anonymous methodology.
Then, there is the school of thought which ascribes harshest punishment as being deterrent to tax evasion. These pundits say that heavy traffic penalties imposed on civilians seeks to enforce civic discipline on the streets. But then, in case of income-tax, loopholes galore as in every other secondary law (i.e, Rules, Circulars and Notifications issued by clerks and their superior officers – as distinct from Acts passed in the August Houses of Parliament). Shabby draftsmanship and poor wisdom in translating the object and purpose of any Finance Bill or tax laws, by the non-representatives of the People of India only compound the chaos, confusion and agony.
What then is the remedy?
Abolish the tax department. Remove personal income tax and levy the much-bandied ‘transaction-tax’ at a steady, uniform three percent and in the net result, watch all the money lying un-utilised and ‘hoarded’ being pumped into the economy by the proud owners. This would result in generating a billion more jobs of productive purpose for the country (as opposed to recruiting a lakh tax officials to haul up defaulters and non-payers or dismissing a hundred errant tax officials).
A #NewIndia must first free the trusting electorate from the vicious clutches of the tax-monstrosity and allow them to breathe free – without fear of some government servant either directly or indirectly under duress from vested interests, fleecing the delinquent citizens or allowing unwarranted suffering to be unleashed on poor,unsuspecting citizens who do not have any sources of income; let alone being guilty of non-filing of ‘nil-returns’ by paying ‘fees’ to tax-consultants (who come nowadays, in various hues and shades).
Presumption and assumptions only widen the suspicion-gap and builds a chasm of mistrust between the Government and We,The People of India 🇮🇳
When will the ‘good governance ‘ Government of the people’s raj dare to take such a pragmatic step?
Definitely, only the ‘lions of Gujarat’ (Narendra Modiji – Amit ShahJi) possess the courage to support the greater good of the People rather than cowing down to wild pressures from the ‘foreign hand’ which till date has doled out many a ‘contractual Governor ‘ for the country’s central bank.
Vandey Mataram!!!
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Transaction tax 3% is a very good suggestion sir,if it implemented certainly our Indian economy will touch its peak.Many of the Indians will get jobs within our country.I really bow down my head for your wise and valuable suggestion.Thanks sir.