Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
SIMPLIFYING THE TAX LAWS
Ch-3 (Part of series on FFIT)
No matter how much you prune, fertilize and water a low quality fruit tree it will not produce sweet high quality fruit. Similarly, reforming the present income tax
laws and other intrusive tax laws will not produce any net advantage to the nation. It will merely compound an existing problem because the concept of taxing income and production has many adverse effects and results.
Why should we pay part of our hard earned income to the government?
Instead of the government being thankful to us for parting with our hard earned income they want to keep track of each and every Rupee we earn and how we spend it. In the name of simplifying taxes and reforming taxes they burden us with complication beyond not only a common mans understanding, but also beyond most college graduates and even most professional accountants have to attend seminars to understand and clarify what new changes are made in the tax laws each year.
Income tax is an old concept, definitely dating as far back as the Roman Empire and probably as far back as the Egyptian Pharaohs and other Kings worldwide. Their tax system may not have been the same as our income taxes as we know it today, which requires so much details and paper work and wastes so many man-hours and resource. Theirs could have been a simple tax. Such form of taxation has always led to a slow down in economic growth, an underground economy and eventually an economic disaster. The same things are happening today. Man should learn from his past mistakes and not repeat them. In an economy, Income tax along with any of the other intrusive taxes mentioned before and corruption are like the clutch and brake in a vehicle. If the clutch and brakes are not released the vehicle will not move forward. Even with the clutch and brakes not released this vehicle called India has moved forward especially since the mid 1990's. Just imagine what kind of power and speed this country will unleash when the clutch and brakes are fully released. The ideas in this book when implemented will do exactly that.
In order to make people's lives easier, abolish all
intrusive taxes ie, income, excise, sales, octroi, VAT or any new taxes that the Politicians can think of next. All of these intrusive taxes can be replaced with a simple 20% Tax on all products and services sold to the final consumer. This would be the easiest way but it would not be fair to the poor people. A better way is explained below.
No matter how much you prune, fertilize and water a low quality fruit tree it will not produce sweet high quality fruit. Similarly, reforming the present income tax
laws and other intrusive tax laws will not produce any net advantage to the nation. It will merely compound an existing problem because the concept of taxing income and production has many adverse effects and results.
Why should we pay part of our hard earned income to the government?
Instead of the government being thankful to us for parting with our hard earned income they want to keep track of each and every Rupee we earn and how we spend it. In the name of simplifying taxes and reforming taxes they burden us with complication beyond not only a common mans understanding, but also beyond most college graduates and even most professional accountants have to attend seminars to understand and clarify what new changes are made in the tax laws each year.
Income tax is an old concept, definitely dating as far back as the Roman Empire and probably as far back as the Egyptian Pharaohs and other Kings worldwide. Their tax system may not have been the same as our income taxes as we know it today, which requires so much details and paper work and wastes so many man-hours and resource. Theirs could have been a simple tax. Such form of taxation has always led to a slow down in economic growth, an underground economy and eventually an economic disaster. The same things are happening today. Man should learn from his past mistakes and not repeat them. In an economy, Income tax along with any of the other intrusive taxes mentioned before and corruption are like the clutch and brake in a vehicle. If the clutch and brakes are not released the vehicle will not move forward. Even with the clutch and brakes not released this vehicle called India has moved forward especially since the mid 1990's. Just imagine what kind of power and speed this country will unleash when the clutch and brakes are fully released. The ideas in this book when implemented will do exactly that.
In order to make people's lives easier, abolish all
intrusive taxes ie, income, excise, sales, octroi, VAT or any new taxes that the Politicians can think of next. All of these intrusive taxes can be replaced with a simple 20% Tax on all products and services sold to the final consumer. This would be the easiest way but it would not be fair to the poor people. A better way is explained below.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
WHO ARE THE OWNERS OF THE WEALTH OF INDIA ?
I have taken the example of a housing society and a business organization to explain the above question.
Suppose you own a flat and live in a housing society where there are one hundred houses. Therefore, you are member of the society and you own one hundredth joint ownership of all the open spaces and you have to pay for one-hundredth share of the maintenance of the common properties. Now suppose there is one-acre open space allotted in your society for a clubhouse and restaurant. By majority decision the hundred owners decide to take a loan and build this clubhouse for themselves as well as for non-members of the society so that there is additional revenue to the clubhouse. Of course every member of the society would pay for the usage of the clubhouse. Those who don't use the club facilities would not pay the user fees. (user fee is an important concept to do away with taxes) Each homeowner would be responsible to pay one hundred of the loan expenses. If you owned two homes you would be responsible to pay for two hundredths of the loan expenses. So also when the clubhouse starts making a profit and you owned one house then you would be entitled to one hundredth of the profits and if you owned two houses you would be entitled to two hundredths of the profits of the clubhouse. It would not be possible for all hundred homeowners to be part of the management team to build this clubhouse. So the hundred homeowners would elect a team of committee members from among the homeowner members. This committee would be responsible for implementing the will of the homeowners in building the clubhouse and be answerable to the homeowners. These committee members would then hire professionals to build the clubhouse. The final plan and cost of the clubhouse could have to be approved by a general body meeting before the plan is implemented. Once the clubhouse is built it would not be possible for all hundred homeowners to be running the day-to-day affairs of the clubhouse. So the hundred owners through the committee hire a professional manager and a team under him to operate the clubhouse.
In the above case who are the owners of the clubhouse?
Not the committee members nor the manager nor the staff. The hundred homeowners are the joint owners of the clubhouse! The manager and his staff are not the owners, nor are they entitled to any share of the profits. In theory all the hundred homeowners are the owners of the clubhouse even though they are not operating the clubhouse on a day-to-day basis. The homeowners may jointly decide to appoint a committee to look after the management of the clubhouse. This could be an elected committee by the hundred homeowners. This committee is answerable to all the homeowners. They do not become the owners of the clubhouse, nor are they entitled to the income of the clubhouse. They may or may not be paid a salary as per the will of all the homeowners. They will be entitled only to one hundredth or two hundredth of the profits of the club as per their ownership of homes in the housing society.
From the above example it is clear who the owners are and who the caretakers are. Comparing this to our joint assets of our country; the committee are the same as our politicians, the manager and his team are comparable to our departmental secretaries and the staff that are under them. This is a very important and powerful concept to understand.
The politicians and all government employees are caretakers of our joint public assets. They are answerable to us, the people of India.
Now let us take the case of a business organization. Supposing an individual or a group of individuals decide to start a business. They would each put in some of their own cash, balance they would borrow loans and/or sell shares of the company to raise funds to start the business. With that money they would buy or lease land, office space, factory etc, whatever was needed to produce the products or provide the service that they would have decided in order to run their company at a profit. Initially for a few months or few years depending on the product or service they may not get any profits. But eventually they would make some profit or the business would have to be shut down because banks would not keep on loaning them more money and the shareholders who have invested to get a return on their investment would not be willing to give the business more money if they would not get any returns. Many businesses do pay the interest and principle to the banks and also give a percentage of their profits to the shareholders and keep some profits for future expansion of the business and on top of all this each year they pay some money from their earnings to the government in the form on Income, Excise, Sales and Octroi taxes whatever is applicable to them.. Still many companies manage to do all of the above and increase their profits and acquire more properties or factories or shares in other companies. In other words they increase their overall wealth..
Keeping these two examples of the housing society and a business firm in mind let us compare and analyze it with our country "INDIA."as our business and our society.
Prior to August 15 1947, the British were "GOVERNING" over India and upon independence they left India completely to the citizens of India. So millions of acres of land called "India" was given back to the citizens of India. We did not have to pay the British any large sums of money to leave India or since then have to pay them any yearly tax for this property called "India" from the income that would be derived by India. We did not have any debts borrowed against India that the people would be held responsible for (as would be the case with a business firm which usually has to pay some interest on borrowed debts plus pay dividends and taxes). Upon independence Indians owned or rented a flat or at least a hut or land which was their personal property. What about all the other properties, which was not owned by individuals or business? For example who would own all the forests, rivers, dams, beaches, coastal waters for fishing and oil and gas all the mineral resources on the land, the train system the roads the schools, colleges, the public lands, offices that were left behind by the British.
Naturally as in the case of the housing society, what was not individually owned was jointly owned by all the homeowners. In the case of India all Indian citizens jointly owned all of the above wealth. Technically one citizen at time of independence would be one shareholder of all the joint assets of India.
Now suppose at independence the population of India was 100 million. This means that upon Independence each citizen would be 100 millionth shareholder of all the joint assets and liabilities of India by default. Any one Indian citizen could not say that this is 100 millionth part of the joint assets of India and I want my share separated and kept as my private individual asset. Same as in a housing society one homeowner cannot claim a one hundredth part of the joint property as his sole and seperate property. Since at that time we didn't want another form of government to rule over us we chose to be a democratic society based on similar lines as the United States of America model which in principle was "of the people, by the people and for the people". There are variances in the actual election process and government forming methods.
Today you ask yourself the question for the above statement. Our democracy may be "of the people" 100%, by the people less than 100% because some percentage of the population does not vote, but "Government for the people?" You answer this question yourself. So as per the society example it is clear that every citizen young or old would be 100 millionth joint owner of all the assets of India at independence. It would be impossible to manage all the joint assets by 100 million people throughout India. As in the case of a "housing society" explained earlier, we the Indian society decided to choose or vote a committee to take care of the management of the joint assets of "India" society. These elected committee members are our politicians.
These elected politicians are our caretakers of the assets jointly owned by the people of India. They are not the sole owners of our joint assets, nor have we elected them to GOVERN over us. They are basically our area representatives and are there to serve us since they are paid a salary from our taxes or from the income of our joint resources.
For our reference the word committee and politicians would mean the same. The committee=Politicians (C/P) would be empowered to hire managers to run the day-to-day business of our country. These managers would be various secretaries commissioners, tehsildars, RTO's etc.
In effect we the people, the shareholders and owners of our joint assets have elected the C/P to look after our assets and generate a profit from it and give us a dividend each year as would be the case in a business. C/P that have a majority appoint their Chief minister or Prime Minister depending on the level of government. The chief would appoint the different Ministers and secretaries of different departments to look after our joint assets. They are all answerable directly or indirectly to us, the owners of India, i.e. the citizens of India. We have not elected the politicians to "GOVERN" over us as the British did. We have elected them to be caretakers of our joint assets and be accountable to us. But now it is the other way around we are accountable for all our incomes and expenses to our public servants and they on the other hand have almost no accountability and are having a party with our income from our joint assets and taxes that they force us to pay. And just as in the case of a business firm that can efficiently pay its loan interest and principle (which at independence India had none to pay) plus pay all different taxes (which again India did not have to pay any taxes to any other government i.e. the British or Portuguese) and yet a business pays dividends year after year which our politicians have never paid us. If our joint assets were managed as a profit making business organization we should also have been paid dividends of our joint ownership of our country's assets for over 50 years. So how have they managed our joint assets? Very, very badly I would say so! Wouldn't you agree with me?
In the last 50 years have our politicians paid any profits to us, the shareholders? NONE. Neither have they had to pay any taxes to any other entity as a business does, nor did they have any loans to pay off at the time of Independence. How would you rate our C/P for managing our joint property compared to how a business organization does? Lets look at a few more things. Have they increased the size of our property by buying any new property, as most businesses would do? No, the C/P have not bought any property outside our land space called "India" in the last 50 + years. They have not had to pay off any old loans left behind by the previous management i.e., the British. In fact, over the years the C/P has amassed so much outstanding loans against our joint resources that it is unbelievable (this topic is discussed later). The C/P has not kept any surplus funds for future expansion, as a business would do. Nor have they given any dividends to the shareholders in the last 50 + years as most business would do. Should we be happy with their managing of our joint assets? Do you think it is time we ask them to do the necessary changes mentioned in this book or shall we wait and watch for another 50 years?
On the other hand if you were to listen to the politicians side of the story they would say: We have increased the size of our infrastructure, Roads, railways, Airports, schools, colleges, hospitals, dams, power plants, and a whole lot of other things that the politicians have accomplished. TRUE but that is a pittance for what they should actually have done over so many years. Besides, most of the above have been done not from the income of our joint assets but by taxing us and borrowing loans against our joint public assets. Look at the quality of our infrastructure and compare it with Japan or Germany, which were completely destroyed at that time by World War II. Let us ask the C/P the question. Have all of the above projects that the C/P claim to have provided to our country been accomplished from the income from our joint resources/assets or have they done it by just taxing us, or by printing more money or by borrowing incredible amounts of loans.
All of the above! They have asked the Indian people, the shareholders, to shell out money year after year in the form of income, sales, excise, and octroi taxes. The Indian people have not paid these taxes happily and willingly, as is the case everywhere in the world. They have been forced to pay it under duress and threat from rules made by our own C/P and implemented by our bureaucrats, the secretaries and the different tax collecting agencies, which they have created without our direct consent. Compare the above to a business firm. If you as a shareholder were asked to pay money (by whatever means) to the firm year after year because they would tell you if you didn't pay them the money (taxes in case of our government) they would not be able to run the business and they would have to shut it down. You as a share holder would say enough is enough and you would stop paying the company money year after year and let the business go bankrupt. The creditors would sell the asssets to recover their money and your shares would have almost zero value.
But as shareholders of India can we allow our business empire called India to go bankrupt?
No! So we have kept paying our taxes to keep our joint assets operating. But we have to wake up and say enough is enough. We want the C/P to really change the whole concept of managing our assets so that we should not have to pay any more taxes and eventually all expenses should be paid from the profits of our joint resources. There should be a user fee system, which means you only pay for what you use (explained later). The C/P have no right to give away part of the citizen's joint property to certain privileged or underprivileged citizens without the consent of the rest of the citizens. The C/P will claim that they have done this on the grounds of humanity or is it really because they may be getting votes from them. The C/P should have gotten Majority consent from the citizens before approving these asset giveaways to any individual or group of people.
Not only have we paid taxes each year to keep our India operational. But each of us taxpayers has been looked upon by the tax officials as dishonest tax evaders and as a personal source of income. On top of that, they have further burdened us by borrowing huge loans from different organizations as the world Bank, IMF and others to provide us these so called infrastructure projects. The interest alone on the above loans are so huge that now each year the C/P borrow fresh loans just to pay interest on the original loans. On top of this the Politician/Bureaucrats continue to borrow brand new loans for new infrastructure projects to make the original loans even bigger so that they can improve and provide more infrastructure to us. What kind of financial future will these debts lead us to?
The result is a very big percentage of our budget goes just to pay the interest on the debts. Some loans do get paid off but that is very small percentage. Net result is that our principle loans and interest payments keep getting bigger and bigger each year. By printing excess quantity of money to avoid heavy taxes leads to inflation and devaluation of our currency, which is not very acceptable to the citizens. Comparing the above scenario to a business organization, no bank or any other institution would loan them money year after year if they had to keep borrowing more funds just to pay the interest. Coming back to our India business, is there an end to this everincreasing loans and interest payments? You decide.
Do you think its time to say good-bye to the present form of intrusive taxation i.e., Income Excise, sales, octroi, VAT, CST, GST and whatever new tax C/P come up with? Would like to see our economy move away from the intrusive tax system and go to a very simple easy to understand and implement system of taxation? And within 10-15 years reduces these taxes to only a user fee form of structure?
With the right economic policy we should be having a budget surplus each year to pay off the debts of our country, this will automatically lead to lower revenue collection requirement, hence a reduction in taxes can follow. Also all the wastages and leakages due to inefficiency and corruption in our economy should be controlled.
How corruption can be completely controlled is explained later under title "Corruption".
If corruption is controlled more than half our problems are solved. Corruption is a big drain on our resources and this requires the need for higher tax collection. By improving our efficiency and eradicating corruption our expenses will be reduced. This will help in further reducing the requirement of revenue collection or this money saved can be used to pay off the loans faster so we don't need to raise this extra revenue to pay interest to foreign debtors. And lastly but more important this book will show the necessary economic policies to be implemented to actually earn a positive revenue inflow from our joint resources, which will not only help in paying off all the loans, but also do away with taxation (except for a user fee system as explained later) India has always been a wealthy country throughout the ages. In the past people from all over the world throughout history have come here to trade with us and gained from trading with us. We have also gained from the trade, but we would have been just fine without the trading. We have not had to go out
of our country to look for trades to increase our wealth. People from all over the world have come to our country to trade with us to increase their wealth. And so it can be again! Only in the last couple centuries Indians have gone out for better business opportunities But that trend can be reversed. With the right economic policies and the will of the people to get it implemented and executed, we will see the above paragraph happening again.
The question is would you like to see it happen? If you do, then do the following few steps and you will see the changes happening for the betterment of our country and for each and every individual.
1. Read this book carefully and try to understand it. It has been written in a simplified way so that most people can understand it. Remember first an idea has to be successful in your mind only then it can become a reality.
2. Discuss the ideas in this book with all your friends and relatives. Give them a copy of this book or ask them to order one for themselves and read it.
3. Most important if you can afford, then send a copy of it to your MP and ask him to read it and start discussing and implementing the policies herein. Although the policies explained are well thought out you may not agree with each and every one of the policies mentioned here and you may want to specify that to your politician. You may also email your suggestion to freedom @ffit.in.
If others have similar suggestions then it will be
incorporated in this book later. After all, this book is "for the people". The easiest thing would be to send the sample letter on the last page to your MP and ask him to start implementing the policies of this book, if he does not take you seriously, he will not get your vote the next time around. Tell him you will vote for any candidate who will be willing to implement the FFIT program. ALL the policies in this book come under the "FFIT PROGRAM" If you are aspiring to be an honest
politician then you can stand on the platform of " FFIT PROGRAM" and this offer is open to any political party or any independent person to follow. You can write to me for any explanations or clarifications. Let's get our country FFIT for all to enjoy not just the selected few.
Suppose you own a flat and live in a housing society where there are one hundred houses. Therefore, you are member of the society and you own one hundredth joint ownership of all the open spaces and you have to pay for one-hundredth share of the maintenance of the common properties. Now suppose there is one-acre open space allotted in your society for a clubhouse and restaurant. By majority decision the hundred owners decide to take a loan and build this clubhouse for themselves as well as for non-members of the society so that there is additional revenue to the clubhouse. Of course every member of the society would pay for the usage of the clubhouse. Those who don't use the club facilities would not pay the user fees. (user fee is an important concept to do away with taxes) Each homeowner would be responsible to pay one hundred of the loan expenses. If you owned two homes you would be responsible to pay for two hundredths of the loan expenses. So also when the clubhouse starts making a profit and you owned one house then you would be entitled to one hundredth of the profits and if you owned two houses you would be entitled to two hundredths of the profits of the clubhouse. It would not be possible for all hundred homeowners to be part of the management team to build this clubhouse. So the hundred homeowners would elect a team of committee members from among the homeowner members. This committee would be responsible for implementing the will of the homeowners in building the clubhouse and be answerable to the homeowners. These committee members would then hire professionals to build the clubhouse. The final plan and cost of the clubhouse could have to be approved by a general body meeting before the plan is implemented. Once the clubhouse is built it would not be possible for all hundred homeowners to be running the day-to-day affairs of the clubhouse. So the hundred owners through the committee hire a professional manager and a team under him to operate the clubhouse.
In the above case who are the owners of the clubhouse?
Not the committee members nor the manager nor the staff. The hundred homeowners are the joint owners of the clubhouse! The manager and his staff are not the owners, nor are they entitled to any share of the profits. In theory all the hundred homeowners are the owners of the clubhouse even though they are not operating the clubhouse on a day-to-day basis. The homeowners may jointly decide to appoint a committee to look after the management of the clubhouse. This could be an elected committee by the hundred homeowners. This committee is answerable to all the homeowners. They do not become the owners of the clubhouse, nor are they entitled to the income of the clubhouse. They may or may not be paid a salary as per the will of all the homeowners. They will be entitled only to one hundredth or two hundredth of the profits of the club as per their ownership of homes in the housing society.
From the above example it is clear who the owners are and who the caretakers are. Comparing this to our joint assets of our country; the committee are the same as our politicians, the manager and his team are comparable to our departmental secretaries and the staff that are under them. This is a very important and powerful concept to understand.
The politicians and all government employees are caretakers of our joint public assets. They are answerable to us, the people of India.
Now let us take the case of a business organization. Supposing an individual or a group of individuals decide to start a business. They would each put in some of their own cash, balance they would borrow loans and/or sell shares of the company to raise funds to start the business. With that money they would buy or lease land, office space, factory etc, whatever was needed to produce the products or provide the service that they would have decided in order to run their company at a profit. Initially for a few months or few years depending on the product or service they may not get any profits. But eventually they would make some profit or the business would have to be shut down because banks would not keep on loaning them more money and the shareholders who have invested to get a return on their investment would not be willing to give the business more money if they would not get any returns. Many businesses do pay the interest and principle to the banks and also give a percentage of their profits to the shareholders and keep some profits for future expansion of the business and on top of all this each year they pay some money from their earnings to the government in the form on Income, Excise, Sales and Octroi taxes whatever is applicable to them.. Still many companies manage to do all of the above and increase their profits and acquire more properties or factories or shares in other companies. In other words they increase their overall wealth..
Keeping these two examples of the housing society and a business firm in mind let us compare and analyze it with our country "INDIA."as our business and our society.
Prior to August 15 1947, the British were "GOVERNING" over India and upon independence they left India completely to the citizens of India. So millions of acres of land called "India" was given back to the citizens of India. We did not have to pay the British any large sums of money to leave India or since then have to pay them any yearly tax for this property called "India" from the income that would be derived by India. We did not have any debts borrowed against India that the people would be held responsible for (as would be the case with a business firm which usually has to pay some interest on borrowed debts plus pay dividends and taxes). Upon independence Indians owned or rented a flat or at least a hut or land which was their personal property. What about all the other properties, which was not owned by individuals or business? For example who would own all the forests, rivers, dams, beaches, coastal waters for fishing and oil and gas all the mineral resources on the land, the train system the roads the schools, colleges, the public lands, offices that were left behind by the British.
Naturally as in the case of the housing society, what was not individually owned was jointly owned by all the homeowners. In the case of India all Indian citizens jointly owned all of the above wealth. Technically one citizen at time of independence would be one shareholder of all the joint assets of India.
Now suppose at independence the population of India was 100 million. This means that upon Independence each citizen would be 100 millionth shareholder of all the joint assets and liabilities of India by default. Any one Indian citizen could not say that this is 100 millionth part of the joint assets of India and I want my share separated and kept as my private individual asset. Same as in a housing society one homeowner cannot claim a one hundredth part of the joint property as his sole and seperate property. Since at that time we didn't want another form of government to rule over us we chose to be a democratic society based on similar lines as the United States of America model which in principle was "of the people, by the people and for the people". There are variances in the actual election process and government forming methods.
Today you ask yourself the question for the above statement. Our democracy may be "of the people" 100%, by the people less than 100% because some percentage of the population does not vote, but "Government for the people?" You answer this question yourself. So as per the society example it is clear that every citizen young or old would be 100 millionth joint owner of all the assets of India at independence. It would be impossible to manage all the joint assets by 100 million people throughout India. As in the case of a "housing society" explained earlier, we the Indian society decided to choose or vote a committee to take care of the management of the joint assets of "India" society. These elected committee members are our politicians.
These elected politicians are our caretakers of the assets jointly owned by the people of India. They are not the sole owners of our joint assets, nor have we elected them to GOVERN over us. They are basically our area representatives and are there to serve us since they are paid a salary from our taxes or from the income of our joint resources.
For our reference the word committee and politicians would mean the same. The committee=Politicians (C/P) would be empowered to hire managers to run the day-to-day business of our country. These managers would be various secretaries commissioners, tehsildars, RTO's etc.
In effect we the people, the shareholders and owners of our joint assets have elected the C/P to look after our assets and generate a profit from it and give us a dividend each year as would be the case in a business. C/P that have a majority appoint their Chief minister or Prime Minister depending on the level of government. The chief would appoint the different Ministers and secretaries of different departments to look after our joint assets. They are all answerable directly or indirectly to us, the owners of India, i.e. the citizens of India. We have not elected the politicians to "GOVERN" over us as the British did. We have elected them to be caretakers of our joint assets and be accountable to us. But now it is the other way around we are accountable for all our incomes and expenses to our public servants and they on the other hand have almost no accountability and are having a party with our income from our joint assets and taxes that they force us to pay. And just as in the case of a business firm that can efficiently pay its loan interest and principle (which at independence India had none to pay) plus pay all different taxes (which again India did not have to pay any taxes to any other government i.e. the British or Portuguese) and yet a business pays dividends year after year which our politicians have never paid us. If our joint assets were managed as a profit making business organization we should also have been paid dividends of our joint ownership of our country's assets for over 50 years. So how have they managed our joint assets? Very, very badly I would say so! Wouldn't you agree with me?
In the last 50 years have our politicians paid any profits to us, the shareholders? NONE. Neither have they had to pay any taxes to any other entity as a business does, nor did they have any loans to pay off at the time of Independence. How would you rate our C/P for managing our joint property compared to how a business organization does? Lets look at a few more things. Have they increased the size of our property by buying any new property, as most businesses would do? No, the C/P have not bought any property outside our land space called "India" in the last 50 + years. They have not had to pay off any old loans left behind by the previous management i.e., the British. In fact, over the years the C/P has amassed so much outstanding loans against our joint resources that it is unbelievable (this topic is discussed later). The C/P has not kept any surplus funds for future expansion, as a business would do. Nor have they given any dividends to the shareholders in the last 50 + years as most business would do. Should we be happy with their managing of our joint assets? Do you think it is time we ask them to do the necessary changes mentioned in this book or shall we wait and watch for another 50 years?
On the other hand if you were to listen to the politicians side of the story they would say: We have increased the size of our infrastructure, Roads, railways, Airports, schools, colleges, hospitals, dams, power plants, and a whole lot of other things that the politicians have accomplished. TRUE but that is a pittance for what they should actually have done over so many years. Besides, most of the above have been done not from the income of our joint assets but by taxing us and borrowing loans against our joint public assets. Look at the quality of our infrastructure and compare it with Japan or Germany, which were completely destroyed at that time by World War II. Let us ask the C/P the question. Have all of the above projects that the C/P claim to have provided to our country been accomplished from the income from our joint resources/assets or have they done it by just taxing us, or by printing more money or by borrowing incredible amounts of loans.
All of the above! They have asked the Indian people, the shareholders, to shell out money year after year in the form of income, sales, excise, and octroi taxes. The Indian people have not paid these taxes happily and willingly, as is the case everywhere in the world. They have been forced to pay it under duress and threat from rules made by our own C/P and implemented by our bureaucrats, the secretaries and the different tax collecting agencies, which they have created without our direct consent. Compare the above to a business firm. If you as a shareholder were asked to pay money (by whatever means) to the firm year after year because they would tell you if you didn't pay them the money (taxes in case of our government) they would not be able to run the business and they would have to shut it down. You as a share holder would say enough is enough and you would stop paying the company money year after year and let the business go bankrupt. The creditors would sell the asssets to recover their money and your shares would have almost zero value.
But as shareholders of India can we allow our business empire called India to go bankrupt?
No! So we have kept paying our taxes to keep our joint assets operating. But we have to wake up and say enough is enough. We want the C/P to really change the whole concept of managing our assets so that we should not have to pay any more taxes and eventually all expenses should be paid from the profits of our joint resources. There should be a user fee system, which means you only pay for what you use (explained later). The C/P have no right to give away part of the citizen's joint property to certain privileged or underprivileged citizens without the consent of the rest of the citizens. The C/P will claim that they have done this on the grounds of humanity or is it really because they may be getting votes from them. The C/P should have gotten Majority consent from the citizens before approving these asset giveaways to any individual or group of people.
Not only have we paid taxes each year to keep our India operational. But each of us taxpayers has been looked upon by the tax officials as dishonest tax evaders and as a personal source of income. On top of that, they have further burdened us by borrowing huge loans from different organizations as the world Bank, IMF and others to provide us these so called infrastructure projects. The interest alone on the above loans are so huge that now each year the C/P borrow fresh loans just to pay interest on the original loans. On top of this the Politician/Bureaucrats continue to borrow brand new loans for new infrastructure projects to make the original loans even bigger so that they can improve and provide more infrastructure to us. What kind of financial future will these debts lead us to?
The result is a very big percentage of our budget goes just to pay the interest on the debts. Some loans do get paid off but that is very small percentage. Net result is that our principle loans and interest payments keep getting bigger and bigger each year. By printing excess quantity of money to avoid heavy taxes leads to inflation and devaluation of our currency, which is not very acceptable to the citizens. Comparing the above scenario to a business organization, no bank or any other institution would loan them money year after year if they had to keep borrowing more funds just to pay the interest. Coming back to our India business, is there an end to this everincreasing loans and interest payments? You decide.
Do you think its time to say good-bye to the present form of intrusive taxation i.e., Income Excise, sales, octroi, VAT, CST, GST and whatever new tax C/P come up with? Would like to see our economy move away from the intrusive tax system and go to a very simple easy to understand and implement system of taxation? And within 10-15 years reduces these taxes to only a user fee form of structure?
With the right economic policy we should be having a budget surplus each year to pay off the debts of our country, this will automatically lead to lower revenue collection requirement, hence a reduction in taxes can follow. Also all the wastages and leakages due to inefficiency and corruption in our economy should be controlled.
How corruption can be completely controlled is explained later under title "Corruption".
If corruption is controlled more than half our problems are solved. Corruption is a big drain on our resources and this requires the need for higher tax collection. By improving our efficiency and eradicating corruption our expenses will be reduced. This will help in further reducing the requirement of revenue collection or this money saved can be used to pay off the loans faster so we don't need to raise this extra revenue to pay interest to foreign debtors. And lastly but more important this book will show the necessary economic policies to be implemented to actually earn a positive revenue inflow from our joint resources, which will not only help in paying off all the loans, but also do away with taxation (except for a user fee system as explained later) India has always been a wealthy country throughout the ages. In the past people from all over the world throughout history have come here to trade with us and gained from trading with us. We have also gained from the trade, but we would have been just fine without the trading. We have not had to go out
of our country to look for trades to increase our wealth. People from all over the world have come to our country to trade with us to increase their wealth. And so it can be again! Only in the last couple centuries Indians have gone out for better business opportunities But that trend can be reversed. With the right economic policies and the will of the people to get it implemented and executed, we will see the above paragraph happening again.
The question is would you like to see it happen? If you do, then do the following few steps and you will see the changes happening for the betterment of our country and for each and every individual.
1. Read this book carefully and try to understand it. It has been written in a simplified way so that most people can understand it. Remember first an idea has to be successful in your mind only then it can become a reality.
2. Discuss the ideas in this book with all your friends and relatives. Give them a copy of this book or ask them to order one for themselves and read it.
3. Most important if you can afford, then send a copy of it to your MP and ask him to read it and start discussing and implementing the policies herein. Although the policies explained are well thought out you may not agree with each and every one of the policies mentioned here and you may want to specify that to your politician. You may also email your suggestion to freedom @ffit.in.
If others have similar suggestions then it will be
incorporated in this book later. After all, this book is "for the people". The easiest thing would be to send the sample letter on the last page to your MP and ask him to start implementing the policies of this book, if he does not take you seriously, he will not get your vote the next time around. Tell him you will vote for any candidate who will be willing to implement the FFIT program. ALL the policies in this book come under the "FFIT PROGRAM" If you are aspiring to be an honest
politician then you can stand on the platform of " FFIT PROGRAM" and this offer is open to any political party or any independent person to follow. You can write to me for any explanations or clarifications. Let's get our country FFIT for all to enjoy not just the selected few.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Do we need changes in economic policies ?
Ch-1 (Part of series on FFIT)
Let us first examine what most major economies of the world are following. The government needs to raise revenue to pay the salaries of the politicians, bureaucrats, for the administration work that they are supposed to do, plus all the other services that they are supposed to provide such as defense, roads, water,
electricity etc. Most of which can be supplied by the private sector. In order to raise revenues they have a tax structure which taxes Income (personal and corporate) and production in the form of Income, Excise, Sales and Octroi. Recently some countries have replaced the sales tax with a VAT (value added tax) or GST (goods andservice tax) these are all intrusive taxes, (local municipal taxes are not intrusive taxes).
All of the above are "Intrusive Taxes" meaning the tax officers can intrude into our personal life by entering your residence, businesses office or factory premises and do a raid/search and seizure. They have the right to open up your business transactions books and ask you any questions on any transaction dating back 5 years and if any of your answers are not to their satisfaction then they have the right to seize your property, lock up your business premises and they can make you pay the back taxes with interest and penalty which could be 10 times the original amount. This puts every possible person under the scrutiny of the tax officials. In India tax officials treat every taxpayer as if we have cheated until you prove you are innocent. This can take years in court. It creates lot of tension for
individuals as well as business owners. In most cases people settle the issue with a bribe to the officers concerned plus pay a nominal amount of actual taxes.
Most people would agree that the bribe amount is a lot more than the actual official amount collected.
Whenever you have an economy having various intrusive taxes, each more complicated than the other and to top it off these tax laws are changed every year,this creates a lot of confusion, fear, anxiety and frustration among the people and the economy does not realize its full growth potential.
Lets take one step back in the past and analyze how and why the concept of taxes came about. The simple answer is that government need money to pay their own salaries, provide administration, infrastructure, defense, hospitals, schools, dams, power plants and a number of other things.
The question here is: does the government need to collect taxes from the people to pay for the above expenses or is there a better way?
There is a better way, without intruding and threatening people's lives. Today's income tax system not only charges an income tax to the higher income
people it also charges at a higher rate of taxation as their income goes higher. This seems unfair and discouraging to the person working harder. Why should a person who works harder or smarter be taxed at an increasing rate on his excess income? This will discourage them to earn higher income or encourage them to hide their income or send their money out of the country to avoid the higher rate of taxes. This makes cheaters out of honest people and creates an open door for bribes and corruption.
It is not a nice feeling for people to work hard/smart and then to save their hard earned money, cheat on taxes. This tax option does not look good either for the taxpayer or the tax collector.
Let us first examine what most major economies of the world are following. The government needs to raise revenue to pay the salaries of the politicians, bureaucrats, for the administration work that they are supposed to do, plus all the other services that they are supposed to provide such as defense, roads, water,
electricity etc. Most of which can be supplied by the private sector. In order to raise revenues they have a tax structure which taxes Income (personal and corporate) and production in the form of Income, Excise, Sales and Octroi. Recently some countries have replaced the sales tax with a VAT (value added tax) or GST (goods andservice tax) these are all intrusive taxes, (local municipal taxes are not intrusive taxes).
All of the above are "Intrusive Taxes" meaning the tax officers can intrude into our personal life by entering your residence, businesses office or factory premises and do a raid/search and seizure. They have the right to open up your business transactions books and ask you any questions on any transaction dating back 5 years and if any of your answers are not to their satisfaction then they have the right to seize your property, lock up your business premises and they can make you pay the back taxes with interest and penalty which could be 10 times the original amount. This puts every possible person under the scrutiny of the tax officials. In India tax officials treat every taxpayer as if we have cheated until you prove you are innocent. This can take years in court. It creates lot of tension for
individuals as well as business owners. In most cases people settle the issue with a bribe to the officers concerned plus pay a nominal amount of actual taxes.
Most people would agree that the bribe amount is a lot more than the actual official amount collected.
Whenever you have an economy having various intrusive taxes, each more complicated than the other and to top it off these tax laws are changed every year,this creates a lot of confusion, fear, anxiety and frustration among the people and the economy does not realize its full growth potential.
Lets take one step back in the past and analyze how and why the concept of taxes came about. The simple answer is that government need money to pay their own salaries, provide administration, infrastructure, defense, hospitals, schools, dams, power plants and a number of other things.
The question here is: does the government need to collect taxes from the people to pay for the above expenses or is there a better way?
There is a better way, without intruding and threatening people's lives. Today's income tax system not only charges an income tax to the higher income
people it also charges at a higher rate of taxation as their income goes higher. This seems unfair and discouraging to the person working harder. Why should a person who works harder or smarter be taxed at an increasing rate on his excess income? This will discourage them to earn higher income or encourage them to hide their income or send their money out of the country to avoid the higher rate of taxes. This makes cheaters out of honest people and creates an open door for bribes and corruption.
It is not a nice feeling for people to work hard/smart and then to save their hard earned money, cheat on taxes. This tax option does not look good either for the taxpayer or the tax collector.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
How Do We Elect our Politician ?
To understand the proposed new way of electing our politicians, you have to clear your mind of the present election system or else you will mix them up in your
mind and confuse yourself. Let us directly elect a chief politician at the city, district (district), state and national level. This would eliminate the need to have a majority party system who would then elect a chief. The people would directly elect each of these politicians once every five years. During the elections the citizens would vote for a different politician at each level who would be in charge of administrating the position he had won.
Each politician could run for one position only. He could not run for city as well as district level elections. The elected politician who gets the highest number of votes
directly from the people would be considered the chief of city, chief of district, chief of state, chief of country as per the category that he has won in election. You may give him title as Chief or President or whatever. The people would directly elect
him so no wasting time afterwards on who is going to be the chief minister or mayor or governor or president etc. By this method there will be no hung parliaments and no
majority business or opposition party. Every elected politician works for the betterment of his area and the country as a whole. No voting down a bill just
because they are in the opposition party. In this system there is no opposition party. Everybody should support a good bill and everybody should turn down a bad one. It shouldn't matter who has introduced the bill. Any individual elected politician
can introduce a bill in the Parliament/State legislature/District/City level business meetings. If it is a good bill and public opinion is in favour of it, then all or most of the other politicians will vote for it, if it is not good it will be voted down after public opinion poll is taken. How each politician votes will be declared on TV Business news and papers so we know how our elected politician is voting. Public can take necessary action against him through the Honourary Committe if he is not voting as per public opinion.
At each level of the election process there will be between 10 and 300 runners-ups to the chief depending on the population of that area. The runner-ups would be given the opportunity to serve on the different Committee's, for the five-year term. Committees would mean the same as ministries as is currently known and Committee member would be same as minister/Mp, for our purpose of discussion these two words mean the same and are used interchangeably) The number of people serving on the Committee would depend on the size of the city, district or state. On the national level there could be 200 to 300 runners-ups that would be serving on the different Committee/ministries. The balance would be on the waiting list of committee members in case if any one is made to resign by public opinion or in case of death or whatever, the first one on the waiting list would be inducted in at the bottom of the serving committees.
mind and confuse yourself. Let us directly elect a chief politician at the city, district (district), state and national level. This would eliminate the need to have a majority party system who would then elect a chief. The people would directly elect each of these politicians once every five years. During the elections the citizens would vote for a different politician at each level who would be in charge of administrating the position he had won.
Each politician could run for one position only. He could not run for city as well as district level elections. The elected politician who gets the highest number of votes
directly from the people would be considered the chief of city, chief of district, chief of state, chief of country as per the category that he has won in election. You may give him title as Chief or President or whatever. The people would directly elect
him so no wasting time afterwards on who is going to be the chief minister or mayor or governor or president etc. By this method there will be no hung parliaments and no
majority business or opposition party. Every elected politician works for the betterment of his area and the country as a whole. No voting down a bill just
because they are in the opposition party. In this system there is no opposition party. Everybody should support a good bill and everybody should turn down a bad one. It shouldn't matter who has introduced the bill. Any individual elected politician
can introduce a bill in the Parliament/State legislature/District/City level business meetings. If it is a good bill and public opinion is in favour of it, then all or most of the other politicians will vote for it, if it is not good it will be voted down after public opinion poll is taken. How each politician votes will be declared on TV Business news and papers so we know how our elected politician is voting. Public can take necessary action against him through the Honourary Committe if he is not voting as per public opinion.
At each level of the election process there will be between 10 and 300 runners-ups to the chief depending on the population of that area. The runner-ups would be given the opportunity to serve on the different Committee's, for the five-year term. Committees would mean the same as ministries as is currently known and Committee member would be same as minister/Mp, for our purpose of discussion these two words mean the same and are used interchangeably) The number of people serving on the Committee would depend on the size of the city, district or state. On the national level there could be 200 to 300 runners-ups that would be serving on the different Committee/ministries. The balance would be on the waiting list of committee members in case if any one is made to resign by public opinion or in case of death or whatever, the first one on the waiting list would be inducted in at the bottom of the serving committees.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)