A reply to heavy weekend tax players

 A reply to WhatsApp message complaining government imposes heavy tax on their weekend merry.

People say they are being taxed heavily.

But I am not.

I earn 10 lakhs per annum and I pay only 56,650/- per annum as the tax. That means just 5.66% tax on my total income. Where my friends in the USA are paying 30% flat of their income!

I own a two wheeler and a four wheeler. Roads are smoother and better than UPA government, wear and tear lesser than yesterday; vehicles are BS IV and I am getting BS-IV petrol everywhere. I am getting extra mileage than yesterday's, which saves me a lot.

I am health cautious and do not eat junks on every weekend. I never want to pay extra hard earned money for the lights, cushions and English speaking waitress in restaurants. I get rice, vegetables, fruits and every agriculture products without tax. My family gets LPG subsidy for cooking healthy food. We enjoy tax-free eating.

I invest in equities and equity oriented mutual funds and I have the patience to wait for at least a year. India being the fastest growing economy, I am getting good tax free returns. My investment returns are not taxed, unlike your fixed deposits returns.

If you feel your goods are taxed more than double the value it has, ask your congress MPs to support GST Bill to remove recurring taxes on goods and services.

I thank my government for taxing those who do not know how to invest and save tax, but to go on outing every weekend to eat junks and spoil their health.

I am happy to pay the taxes.

Forward this message to every responsible citizen of India.

Subramanian Swamy rightly said replace private bank's shares in GSTN with PSBs

 GST bill became law previous week after president signed it post ratification by the majority of states. GST brings most of the indirect taxes under one roof. As always, the banks will be playing a major role in collecting the taxes and providing the data of collected taxes to the concerned departments. This needs a huge infrastructure to maintain, process, analyse and to connect the government department with the banks network.

Goods and Services Tax Network, (GSTN) is a Section 25 (not for profit), non-Government, private limited company. It was incorporated during the previous UPA regime to provide IT infrastructure and services to the Central and State Governments, tax payers and other stakeholders for implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). We can see the first two parties, state and central governments in the share holdings of GSTN. The important stake holders- Public Sector Banks which collects the taxes for the government are not in the scene. The government of India holds 24.5 per cent stake in GSTN while states together hold another 24.5 per cent. Balance 51% equity is with non-Government financial institutions like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC Ltd, LIC Housing Finance and NSE SIC.

GSTN has applied for loan of Rs 550 crores from IDFC. The central government is standing as guarantor for this loan though it is not a majority share holder. This is questioned by Mr Subramanian Swamy- why the majority stake holders are not the guarantors for this loan? In a way he right, but the government's interest in faster implementation of GST is not questionable. His comments on shareholding of GSTN makes the issue interesting.

Subramanian Swamy

As Mr Swamy's says partnering with private institutions to set up an institutions like GSTN to handle highly sensetive data is the matter of worry. I am not saying ICICI, HDFC or LICHF are unreliable, but when someone inside the house are capable of doing some job, calling an outsider to do the same job makes no sense. Firstly, public sector financial institutions holds the majority of share in banking industry and they are capable of partnering with government for implementation of such a high aimed mission like GST even during the period of high bad debts. Secondly, it is not ICICI or HDFC would be collecting the majority of the taxes, but it is definitely SBI, a public sector bank will be the indispensable tax collector for the government even in future. Third reason is by making public sector banks to hold stakes in GSTN, goverment would have had better control over it. Mandatory audit by CAG is always better than an offer to CAG audit. Mr Swamy's proposal to replace GSTN share holding of  private banks with public sector banks makes some sense because tax data is sensitive and also confidential. 

How the global crypto community is raising funds for India to fight Covid19

 

Cryptocurrencies may or may not be allowed in India in the future, but angel investor and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, one of its most vocal proponents, has successfully demonstrated its power in raising funds from different parts of the world and transferring them in hours, to help India fight the deadly second wave of Coronavirus.

Srinivasan has also used Twitter's RT (Retweet) function to great effect, using it to raise awareness and get people to pitch in. For instance, he tweeted that for every RT, he will donate another $50, up to $100,000, to help fight Covid in India.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, top executives of Coinbase, NotionHQ, and HubSpot have also contributed. How will the donations be converted into fiat where will they be used?Edited excerpts of a conversation that happened on Twitter between Balaji Srinivasan and Moneycontrol's Chandra R Srikanth:

 Can you take us through how the global crypto community has come together to mobilize Covid relief for India? How can this be amplified?

Balaji: Sandeep Nailwal is the cofounder of Polygon, which is India’s first crypto unicorn and which I’m an investor in. He led the charge, setting up a crypto address and taking on the regulatory and accounting responsibilities. Critically, a new crypto address can be set up in seconds; rather than days (or weeks) for an in-person bank account. I retweeted it and then Vitalik Buterin did. We donated and encouraged others to also donate.

I read posts on how a million dollars was raised in just half a day in crypto, something that would have taken a couple of days at least if one were to use non-crypto networks....

Balaji: Crypto allowed us to set up an address in seconds and raise millions in hours from people in dozens of countries, with fully transparent public accounting of all funds in the blockchain. That’s just not possible with the traditional financial system, and indeed illustrates many of the concepts I’ve been mentioning in my articles.

How will this be converted into fiat money here, do you anticipate any hurdles there?

Balaji: I believe it is being done with Indian crypto exchanges. I understand Sandeep Nailwal is working with skilled volunteer accountants and the reputable ACT fund.

In terms of disbursals, are there specific causes you will use this for or will it be used directly to directly procure critical supplies from China,US etc

Balaji: Sandeep Nailwal and his colleagues are helping with directing the funds locally; I am just organizing donations. In addition to Vitalik Buterin, other global crypto people have joined in including Surojit Chatterjee (CPO of Coinbase) and Eric Meltzer (early crypto investor).

Has this also helped in demonstrating how crypto can help Indian businesses in the long run?

Balaji: The immediate issue is to solve the urgent and important problem of getting India past COVID-19 and fully vaccinated. The long-term issue is to solve the less-urgent but still important problem of rebuilding the economy after the stresses of COVID. It is here that the global crypto community could help in a different way, by investing in India, and helping with the economic recovery, as detailed in some of my articles

What does the Govt need to do to enable this going forward?

Balaji: The government should embrace crypto as a way for India to (a) protect Indian national security against de-platforming by American and Chinese tech companies and (b) rebuild the economy after COVID. Crypto is like the combination of economic liberalization and the internet, the two most potent forces since 1991 for Indian GDP growth. To have a chance of getting back on track to the $5T economy target for 2025, India needs to embrace the $2T-and-growing-fast crypto-economy.

 

Bhutan is all about happiness

Public policies of governments in any nation should aim at the happiness of its citizen. Though many governments tell, their every policy is meant for creating happy nation, most of the times it fails. Our policies aimed at development of the nation in terms of GDP fails to keep the citizens happy, fails to meet sustainable development and protecting culture and environment. But in Bhutan "gross national happiness"(GNH) is important than Gross National Product. 
I came across Bhutan's GNH and National Happiness Commission very recently when I was reading some piece of article on development. I was ashamed to be ignorant of such a beautiful system of governance, present at the neighbouring and most friendly country to India.

I was also surprised to read there is no National Planning Commission like one in India. Instead Bhutan has Gross National Happiness Commission. Every government policy has to pass through NHC so that the policy is in accordance with the four pillars of GNH viz promotion of sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance.

Bhutan has the policies that least 60% of the country's land must remain under forest cover at all times. It imposes the tariff of $250 a day for each foreign visitor to control the tourist and protect the environment and culture. Sale of tobacco products is completely banned. All Bhutanese are required to wear the national dress, and all buildings must conform to the national architecture to preserve the country's distinctive culture. Can we even expect such policies from our governments? Or ever our government will be think of implementing such policies against the hypocrisy?

It is not surprising fact that Bhutan is better in terms of life expectancy, GDP, GNI and Per Capita Income than other neighbouring Asean countries. One can google the data.