Feb 28, 2007 12:52 AM
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In May 2004, the Congress came to power with a rag tag bunch of coalition partners, with a very grandiose slogan, “ Congress Ke Haath, Aam Aadmi Ke Saath”. Yes all the business media persons were ecstastic whenOxford educated Manmohan Singh and Harvard educated P.Chidambaram became the Prime Minister and Finance Minister respectively. Somehow I was skeptical about this, considering that the coalition was hostage to populist champions like the RJD, LJP and the Left.
But anyway lets come back to the topic. Some one said of Subramanyam Swamy, “ Even Harvard makes mistakes”. Maybe they can add a certain P.Chidambaram to the list. When this man became the Finance Minister, every one was confident that he would deliver, after all he was from Harvard right. And in his earlier stints as Finance Minister he had done a fairly good job. Almost 3 years down the line, Mr Harvard has made Muhammad Bin Tughlaq look like a genius and the Leftist parties as economic wizards. Consider some of the brilliant steps he has taken, which should leave Aam Aadmi like me applauding for the sheer audacity.
In his first tenure, Mr Harvard, started something called theFringe Benefits Tax. Now if you are a salaried employee working in a company, you do have some benefits and incentives given. Mr Harvard put a tax on those benefits. So that means if you get a performance bonus of about 20000 Rs, you are liable to pay tax on it. In effect it means as an employee you are bound to be penalized for having extra benefits. So out went all the benefits a company would have normally given to it’s employees.
Ok so you don’t get the company benefits, fine, but you still had to be taxed right, to fund the Free Color TV Scheme or Free Cylinder Scheme or any freebies, or one of those numerous Rajiv/Jawahar/Indira schemes to uplift the poor, but in reality to benefit the persons implementing them. Hmm, so what next? Yes you an ordinary middle class person is buying so much, haven’t you heard of simple living and high think. Yes so Mr. Harvard came up with something calledVAT, so that next time you buy something, you pay more than what you should be normally paying for it. In a way he is encouraging simple living, because the Aam Aadmi has to think twice before buying something now.
And then as if paying the taxes, were not enough, we had to pay something extra called as Service Tax for every service you were using. So if you are using a mobile and an internet connection in your home, please pay Service Tax on it, and also something called Education Cess. Of course in spite of all the taxes and cesses, our services continue to be as woeful as ever, and the education system is in a shambles. No prizes for guessing where all that money goes.
And then Mr Harvard had a brain idea of coming up with an income tax form, in lieu of Saral, which stumped even hard core financial brains, and there was a proposal to tax all your banking transactions. Fortunately the massive public outcry, forcedMr. Harvard to drop his proposal, but not before declaring a la Terminator “I will be back”. So don’t be surprised, if one fine day, you find that you have to pay something for taking your money out of the bank.
Next Mr. Harvard somehow saw that land rates were spiraling everywhere. Fantastic another golden goose. So he increased the equity available to banks, the banks to overcome this, hiked the Home Loan interest rates, and who suffers in the end, the Aam Aadmi. Today to build my own house, I take a loan, and for the rest of my life, I have to lead life like a pauper, cutting down on everything just to repay the amount back. Or the other option, pay exorbitant rents and live at the landlord’s mercy.
And as of now, Mr Harvard’s latest brainwave is to do away altogether with tax exemptions, why because its’ too complicated to calculate tax with all those exemptions in place. Mr Chidambaram, did you really graduate from Harvard, because I think, if you did, by now, you must be knowing all this right. If this proposal does come through, one thing is for sure. I am going to pack my bags up, get out of here forever and come back only when this Govt is voted out for good, I am serious about it.
Is this what they meant by Aam Aadmi ke Saath? Thanks to the Finance Ministry’s quixotic policies, today the Aam Aadmi can’t buy a home on his own, has to think twice before shopping. Forget luxury goods, fancy cars and foreign trips, the Aam Aadmi, has to pay through his nose for the bare necessities of life. What in God’s name is this? As a professional, I have to pay an insane amount of tax, then I have to pay service tax for every service I use, then I have to pay VAT on everything I purchase, and I have been just surviving by investing in some policies for tax exemptions. And now Mr.Harvard wants to get rid of that too. Why just to fund some more fancy schemes of Madame Sonia Gandhi? Why doesn’tMr.Harvard cut down the unproductive expenditure of his own ilk? The subsidized house, free power, free foreign trips, free water, every thing paid through the tax payers money for what? Does Mr. Harvard have the guts to go around and clean up the black money accumulated in Swiss banks by his corporate buddies, but that would mean no party funds? What about the fact that many rich farmers hardly pay any tax, but that is a vote bank right?
So the corporate czars wont be touched, because they provide the money. The faming lobby wont be touched because they bring in the votes. The politicians wont be touched, because reasons are too obvious. So who ends up paying for all that, the ordinary Aam Aadmi, yes the ordinary normal person on the street, who works to make a living and pays his taxes. And in the meanwhile, the fat cats go attend their Page 3 parties with all their shady wealth, and our Mr.Harvard wont even touch them. And all this while Dr.Oxford is busy globe trotting, parroting about the Indo-US nuclear deal, and crowing about 9% growth, while we the Aam Aadmi find ourselves burdened with life? Maybe its high time Mr.Harvard, comes out of his quarters, lives like an Aam Aadmi, pays his taxes regularly, and then he would understand the frustrations of ordinary people.,
