Shantha Kumar's Blog

Sir, Sub: One Corporation One Tax We, the tax payers of this city, pay our taxes on time, every time. We contribute to the corporation treasury in all the forms that corporation has chosen to impose tax. We bring to your notice the following important points: 1. Taxes by every government is being merged and made into one tax. Government of India is making it into one GST and one Direct Tax, by subsuming multiple taxes under one head. Every government across the world is doing it. 2. Subsuming multiple taxes into one, would help the government to concentrate on one tax collection and ensure one hundred percent collection of taxes. It will also reduce manpower to collect taxes and therefore, cost of tax collection will also come down. 3. Since the corporation will have clear tax collection targets, the collection will also be high and targets can easily be achieved. Therefore, corporation can also plan its usage more accurately. 4. It is also beneficial for the tax payer ...

India Tax Payer has been spearheading this movement for one tax for the entire government. In order to understand why one tax, we need to first appreciate why we have something called as tax. Tax is the means of funding Government objectives. A short definition. But pretty appropriate. In the beginning, tax was simple and straight. Just did not require so many forms to file a tax return! Indian taxation during pre-British period was simple. One sixth of what you make goes to the government. Things were simple and easy for the poor tax payer. And there was but one single Tax to be paid. Governments became complicated. They wanted to support some and oppose others. So they taxed all those people they were not getting along well. It could be some products that they did not want to encourage; some products they wanted to encourage. They taxed those products that affected the livelihood of people. These were all mostly positive taxes helping equality in society. Of course, ther...

Tax is a no-go area for the people. You will never find the government discussing how much to tax or whether they are taxing properly with people or with tax payers. In most cases, people who pay the tax have almost, no say in the matter. Governments across the world make sure that the tax payer is feeling absolutely powerless when it comes to deciding on the quantum of tax paid and how the tax money is being employed. The corollary is also true! They make those who get benefits from the tax money feel that they are not paying any tax and that the money they get from the Government is actually, free money! The truth is, both are false! Tax payer has power to control and monitor the government and its taxes. And the person who is enjoying the Government 'benevolence' is also paying taxes. In most cases, he might end up paying more than what he gets back from the government! This is the truth. As a tax payer, we always think, that we do not have any power to wield i...

Every corporation needs money. And tax is the way they collect it to give services to the citizens it serves. What is the easiest and the best way to collect money from citizens? There had been numerous research activities conducted by top economic scientists of the world on this topic. Though, they look at costing every government service and the citizen pays per use, it has been found there are services that just cannot be costed. Most researchers recommend a combination of both; that is, for most personalised services, the citizen pays on per-use basis and for non personalised services, the public body taxes the citizen. It is also suggested across the world and adopted by various governments that taxing done for non-personalised services are merged and collected using a single taxation system. What makes a single tax system attractive? For the governing body, they have but one tax to collect. Therefore, ensure that taxes are collected from every liable citizen. Limit ma...