इन्कम टैक्स: जब तक ज़्यादातर लोग टैक्स दायरे में नहीं आते, बड़ी राहत की गुंजाइश नहीं

Budget is coming. Everyone’s eyes are on the income tax slab. But it seems nothing is going to happen. Agreed that nine states and before the Lok Sabha elections will also have the same budget, but the government does not care. Modi government never brought the election budget. There is no such possibility this time also. If something is done in a roundabout way, it is a different matter, but there does not seem to be any scope for doing anything directly in the income tax slab. Actually the dilemma of the government is that in this country of 140 crores there are only eight crore people who pay income tax. This means that most of the employees are paying tax. That too because it is deducted directly from the salary. The employees and pensioners of the Government of India are about one crore. Only one crore are employees of state governments. Four crore are the employees who belong to the organized sector. Most of the people are the ones who pay taxes.

Overall, there is not much pressure on the businessmen to pay income tax. That’s why they don’t even give. The world is running on slips. The common man also finds the slip system cheap, so he also does not pressurize for a confirmed receipt. Due to the low tax payer, the government refrains from giving relief in income tax. What should happen is that apart from the employees, most of the high earning people should be brought under the tax net. If more and more people pay tax, the tax collection of the government will increase despite giving huge tax relief. It is meaningless to talk of relief on the basis of only five percent income tax payers.

Due to the low tax payer, the government refrains from giving relief in income tax.

Although some scholars had earlier suggested the abolition of income tax, but the government probably did not make much effort in this direction. The suggestion was to abolish income tax and impose one percent tax on bank deposits and withdrawals. The scheme was good and it would have resulted in a huge increase in the tax collection, but every scheme has a risk. The danger was that what would happen if people stopped keeping money in the bank?

Although the government has many methods to withdraw the money lying in the house. But where does the government raid? The world cannot be run on the basis of impressions! Anyway, unless more and more people are brought into the tax net, there is no possibility of any major relief to the present income tax payers.