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"The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward"
Here is another quote attributed to many including our Autocrat (OWH):
"Only two things are certain in this world: Death and Taxes"
Another quote attributed to OWH:
"It is the privilege of a writer to misquote" (and misattribute)
Taxes come in two hits:
1. Direct
2. Indirect
Direct taxes raise your blood pressure and make you want to avoid them somehow or other by hook or book.
Indirect taxes are a breeze...you just whine. What the eye doesn't see, the belly doesn't throw up.
In affluent countries like the US, direct taxes hit you most. Much more than the indirect taxes. I am told by Edwin that a good fortnight before the last date for filing these (Federal) overtures, the whole US goes into a hypertensive state. Everyone who is someone is worked up how to calculate, fill up, and hide.
Not so the Scandinavian countries. Their citizens are unique in the Universe...it seems they love to pay their taxes...they are dark countries without our perennial sunshine that makes us so innovative taxwise...both the taxer and the taxed.
In India, which is poor and super-populated, Government finds it tough to cull the few chaps rich enough to be taxed directly. So they rely on indirect taxes. These taxes are numerous and come with cool names.
The first among them is called the Excise. If you want to get rich quick, join the excise department. Because your hands will be full...everything that is bought and sold, from pin to elephant, is subject to this insidious excise tax.
Remember the Salt Satyagraha and the Dandi March of Gandhiji...it was to defy the British tax on as essential commodity as salt. Gandhiji succeeded. But his successors failed....salt is now heavily taxed by the Indian Government.
Also recall the Lagan movie...Khansaheb did find a way to avoid paying taxes by playing cricket. But nowadays cricket itself is heavily taxed. When you buy your ticket to watch that test match in Eden Gardens, you must be paying hefty Entertainment Tax...also to watch the Lagan movie.
Excise tax was once sly and respectable. But nowadays, here in Hyderabad, excise has only one connotation...Gluck! Gluck!! Gluck!!!
About direct taxes, Jesus has the last word.
This is the season of Lent, Palm Sunday, Passover and Easter...time when Jesus would ride a peaceable donkey into the Temple of Jerusalem and upset the tables of money-changers and crooks and drive them away.
Of course Jesus had many enemies. The Jews then were angry with their Roman rulers who demanded taxes and tributes (as usual). There was a sense of seething and impotent revolt. And so the hostiles planned to trap Jesus and get rid of him. And they praised Jesus and asked him:
"Should we pay the taxes demanded by Romans?"
Had Jesus said, "Yes," he would be branded a betrayer of Jews and killed.
Had he said, "No," he would be declared a traitor and handed over to Pontius the Pilate for execution.
Jesus saw through their game and asked them to show him a coin. And when they produced one, he asked them:
"Whose picture is it on this coin"
And they said:
"Caesar's"
And Jesus declared:
"Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render unto God what belongs to God!"
A lovely dictum that all of should follow but don't.
His enemies were fooled and his followers marveled.
Of course Jesus was crucified, but not by his enemies but his disciple, Judas (of the Judas Tree fame).
And Jesus knew it and predicted it...
"For thirty pieces of silver"
It was great that the Roman coins had Caesar's picture on them. Nowadays I don't know to whom I am paying my taxes. Jesus would have been at a loss to see a coin with Three Lions on one side and something inane on the other.
So, I would suggest that hereafter the GoI should mint her coins with the picture of the current Finance Minister on it...much like we have the signature of the Governor of Reserve Bank (an alumnus of IIT KGP) on our bank notes.
Ten thousand years later archeologists would dig up one such decrepit coin and see a cute face on it and wonder who this handsome hidambaram could be...
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...John Maynard Keynes as quoted in ToI Edit Page Thursday, February 14, 2013
"Only two things are certain in this world: Death and Taxes"
Another quote attributed to OWH:
"It is the privilege of a writer to misquote" (and misattribute)
Taxes come in two hits:
1. Direct
2. Indirect
Direct taxes raise your blood pressure and make you want to avoid them somehow or other by hook or book.
Indirect taxes are a breeze...you just whine. What the eye doesn't see, the belly doesn't throw up.
In affluent countries like the US, direct taxes hit you most. Much more than the indirect taxes. I am told by Edwin that a good fortnight before the last date for filing these (Federal) overtures, the whole US goes into a hypertensive state. Everyone who is someone is worked up how to calculate, fill up, and hide.
Not so the Scandinavian countries. Their citizens are unique in the Universe...it seems they love to pay their taxes...they are dark countries without our perennial sunshine that makes us so innovative taxwise...both the taxer and the taxed.
In India, which is poor and super-populated, Government finds it tough to cull the few chaps rich enough to be taxed directly. So they rely on indirect taxes. These taxes are numerous and come with cool names.
The first among them is called the Excise. If you want to get rich quick, join the excise department. Because your hands will be full...everything that is bought and sold, from pin to elephant, is subject to this insidious excise tax.
Remember the Salt Satyagraha and the Dandi March of Gandhiji...it was to defy the British tax on as essential commodity as salt. Gandhiji succeeded. But his successors failed....salt is now heavily taxed by the Indian Government.
Also recall the Lagan movie...Khansaheb did find a way to avoid paying taxes by playing cricket. But nowadays cricket itself is heavily taxed. When you buy your ticket to watch that test match in Eden Gardens, you must be paying hefty Entertainment Tax...also to watch the Lagan movie.
Excise tax was once sly and respectable. But nowadays, here in Hyderabad, excise has only one connotation...Gluck! Gluck!! Gluck!!!
About direct taxes, Jesus has the last word.
This is the season of Lent, Palm Sunday, Passover and Easter...time when Jesus would ride a peaceable donkey into the Temple of Jerusalem and upset the tables of money-changers and crooks and drive them away.
Of course Jesus had many enemies. The Jews then were angry with their Roman rulers who demanded taxes and tributes (as usual). There was a sense of seething and impotent revolt. And so the hostiles planned to trap Jesus and get rid of him. And they praised Jesus and asked him:
"Should we pay the taxes demanded by Romans?"
Had Jesus said, "Yes," he would be branded a betrayer of Jews and killed.
Had he said, "No," he would be declared a traitor and handed over to Pontius the Pilate for execution.
Jesus saw through their game and asked them to show him a coin. And when they produced one, he asked them:
"Whose picture is it on this coin"
And they said:
"Caesar's"
And Jesus declared:
"Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and render unto God what belongs to God!"
A lovely dictum that all of should follow but don't.
His enemies were fooled and his followers marveled.
Of course Jesus was crucified, but not by his enemies but his disciple, Judas (of the Judas Tree fame).
And Jesus knew it and predicted it...
"For thirty pieces of silver"
It was great that the Roman coins had Caesar's picture on them. Nowadays I don't know to whom I am paying my taxes. Jesus would have been at a loss to see a coin with Three Lions on one side and something inane on the other.
So, I would suggest that hereafter the GoI should mint her coins with the picture of the current Finance Minister on it...much like we have the signature of the Governor of Reserve Bank (an alumnus of IIT KGP) on our bank notes.
Ten thousand years later archeologists would dig up one such decrepit coin and see a cute face on it and wonder who this handsome hidambaram could be...
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