Letters: Not a thrilling prospect

With reference to the piece, "Simpler and more certain taxation" (March 1), while the writer Sukumar Mukhopadhyay finds an indirect tax Budget "thrilling", I find it rather killing. The finance minister Arun Jaitley's direct tax proposals will cause a loss of over Rs 1,000 crore, even as it is expected to garner Rs 20,000 crore from indirect taxes, which are not only regressive but also retrograde.

Both the poor and the rich pay the same tax on the purchase of items. Due to falling oil prices, inflation is manageable, barring the prices of some staple food items that have shot up. Once oil prices rise, the consequential inflationary pressures would hit the common man hard.

I expected Jaitley to submit an interim report card on the progress made in bringing back black money stashed abroad. This was a tall promise made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his high-pitched campaign before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Curiously, Jaitley was silent on this in his Budget speech, suggesting he had nothing worthwhile to report. And yet, he came up with another version of a voluntary disclosure scheme - or simply, old wine in a new bottle. He is being unfair to honest taxpayers. I don't find that thrilling at all.

The steps announced to reduce litigation are, at best, illusory. Given the types of orders that are passed which, by the government's own admission, are set aside by the appellate tribunal, it is unrealistic to expect the appellant to pay the entire disputed tax. Such appellants would have no reasons to feel thrilled either.

S K Choudhury Bengaluru

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