Wednesday 27 February 2013

TAXING THE SUPER RICH AT HIGHER RATE - A RETROGRADE STEP


Strange are the ways of polity, particularly in India. About 15 years back the Indian finance minister, incidentally it was Mr. P Chidabaram came out with a philosophy that maximum personal income tax slab should be 30% and that will increase the tax compliance and decrease the temptation to hide incomes that would result in growth of black money. Today the same finance minister wants to tax the super rich at higher tax rates. Most of the spade work of reducing the highest slab tax rates to 30% from the unimaginable 97.5% of the early 70's was the result of successive endeavor of  finance ministers of those years and yielded handsome returns.

Now again the government seems to be in a fix whether to pursue what is logical and time tested or to make a shift to something trendy, vote catching and pleasant sounding to the masses and the insane elements of Indian polity. The measure if implemented may result in an extra collection of an absolutely insignificant figure of few hundred crores  in the short run but will open the floodgates of corruption and black money generation in the long run. The finance minister will be doing a big favour to the masses and the country if he declares a war on corrupt people  and corruption for that will be the end of the poverty and miseries in this country. Hopefully he realizes that poverty is a direct result of  corruption  by  those in authority and power.

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