Paying tax and filing returns

Dear Mr.Chidambaram

I fully agree to your point that it is the foremost duty of every citizen to declare their income and pay up the taxes properly. It is very heartening indeed to note the steps being taken by you to uncover the black money. But do you honestly think this make the people realize and declare their proper income every year and thus make a better India?

Have you ever thought of asking your politician friends to declare their income which would suffice this nation for at least another 5 years without collecting any tax from ordinary and salaried citizens? If the politician b****** (starting with letter ‘b’ could also be bigwigs) are coughed up, the revenue to the government would be to such an extent that it can catapult India’s treasury.

You are only targeting the salaried individuals who do pay taxes properly and often they are the ones who are burdened with additional revenues to the politician pockets - in the name of relief fund for floods, earthquakes and natural calamities. You don’t mind asking the state government when they request 1000 crores as relief fund (on how it is proposed to be used) for natural disaster aftermath. Has the government at least once tried to find out how the funds have been used and whether the affected people have been really benefited?

Every time, a disaster strikes, the relief is always sanctioned in the order of crores without evaluating, because the people who approve very well know that they will get sufficient commission and strike a handsome deal. By the time, the money is on the verge of reaching common man, it would have got diluted by so called peoples’ representatives (in the name of ministers) acting as middle men for swindling money for their own personal use. And no government dares to question the use of the sanctioned money because everyone in the line got their lions share.

Oh how ridiculous was the proposed policy to levy 10% of transaction fee for every 10000 withdrawal from savings account? Mr.PC - only the common man has their savings in bank account. People who swindle money do not keep them in SBI or other nationalized or private banks. God luckily gave you that insight and at the last minute, you changed it to current account. But pray, among all the people, what made you hit upon that strange idea of 10% will be a mystery for ever.

As a first step, can you please make your politician friends to declare their income and pay up taxes and also reduce the amount of luxury you people enjoy being ministers and secretaries? Starting from air traveling concessions, you people enjoy almost everything to telephone bills, and electricity bills. And it doesn’t stop when you are in power. The president of India, after retirement from office, still enjoys the best life and comforts and his house is excluded from any CBI raids. Wonder why there is no retirement age for politicians which will at least stop the money swindling to an extent.

There is no way you can expect the people to be honest when you politicians, self-claimed as “honest and clean”, start discharging the duties that were promised during election campaigns. You can’t make a better India when we have politician, with many of them with criminal records and still get re-elected every time.

- View of a patriotic, sincere and tax-paying Indian