Abolish Income Tax

Income tax. It baffled even the great Albert Einstein, who declared that "The hardest thing in the world to understand is income taxes." But can the complexity of Income Tax alone explain away the fact that only 1.7% of our population has taken the trouble to pay it? Or the fact that only 0.25% declare taxable income over Rs 50 lakh and just another 6.28% taxable income between Rs 2.5-25 lakh? In 2015-16, the most recent financial year for which the Central Board of Direct Taxes has shared data, income tax revenues, in fact, fell by Rs 3 lakh crore - to Rs 1.88 lakh crore from Rs 1.91 lakh crore. Ahead of the last full-fledged budget by the Modi government before general elections, Anjana Menon, writing in the Economic Times, is categorical in dismissing the tax as a dysfunctional tax and demanding its abolition. "Scrapping personal income taxes, on the other hand, will end both covert and thrifty spending. It will free up incomes that could find their way to services ranging from travel to home improvement. It will also give a fillip to consumables from groceries to gadgets. The knock-on effect will create a demand for goods and services that will bolster economic activity. Ring-fenced with tighter GST monitoring, the government might have a winning formula," Cengao India  suggests - Dear Arun Jaitley, personal income tax is dysfunctional, just scrap it".

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