हम टैक्स क्यों भरें ?

अभी कुछ समय पहले मैंने एक पोस्ट पढ़ा। लेखक ने टैक्स ना भरने के न जाने कितने ही सटीक उदाहरण दिए हैं।

जैसे :

* सरकार हमारे टेक्स का सारा पैसा घोटाला करके कुछ लोगों के ख़जाने भरने का काम करती है।

* सरकार जब हमें बढ़ियां रोड, होस्पिटल, स्कूल, इत्यादि नहीं दे सकती तो इसे टैक्स लेने का कोई अधिकार नहीं है।

* चूँकि सरकार 24 घंटे बिजली नहीं दे पाती है और  हमें इन्वर्टर खरदना पड़ता है इसलिए टैक्स की थोड़ी सी चोरी तो हमारा हक़ है।

* हमें अपने बच्चों को प्राइवेट स्कूल में पढ़ाना पड़ता है,  तो हम टैक्स क्यों दें। इसके लिए तो हमें सरकार से पैसे मिलने चाहिये।

अब तक तो आपको यकीन हो गया होगा की टैक्स चोरी करना सही ही नहीं बल्कि हमारा हक़ है । अभी तक अगर आपने टैक्स भरा है तो कितनी बड़ी गलती की है।

अब जरा सोचिये की सरकार ये सब चीजें क्यों नहीं करती।
* क्या सरकार के पास इतना पैसा नहीं है।

* क्या हर इंफ्रा स्ट्रक्चर प्रोजेक्ट का टेंडर किसी नेता को घूस खिला कर कोई कांट्रेक्टर हासिल कर लेता है। उसके बाद घूस खिला कर कोई इंजिनियर से पास करा लेता है।

दोनों ही बातें सही है।

अब थोड़ा यूनियन बजट को देखते हैं। http://indiabudget.nic.in/glance.asp

अगर सरकार की कलेक्शन को 100 रुपया माने।

यह कैसे जमा होता है।
21 रूपये लोन से , 89 रुपये टैक्स से। इसमें सर्फ 14 रूपये इनकम टैक्स से जमा होता है।

यह खर्च कैसे होता है।
19 रूपये व्याज में, 10 रूपये सब्सिडी में, 10 रूपये डिफेन्स में। 61 रूपये बांकी ख़र्च के लिए जिसमें सरकारी कर्मचारी की तनख्वा भी शामिल है।

आप देखेंगे कि हम अभी एक बड़ा सा हिस्सा लोन लेते हैं और क़रीब उतना ही व्याज पे ख़र्च करना पड़ता है।

अब देखें की कितने लोग इनकम टैक्स देते हैं। सरकारी डाटा के हिसाब से सिर्फ 1% लोग टैक्स भरते हैं । हालाँकि 3-4% रिटर्न फाइल करते हैं।

इससे यह साबित हो जाता है कि देश को पैसे की बेहद कमीं है।

अब हमें इस बात पर ध्यान देना चाहिए की सरकार अपना काम ठीक से क्यों नहीं कर पाती है।

सरकार का कोई मंत्री, MLA, MP, कोई योजना पास करवाता है। हम में से ही कोई कॉन्ट्रेक्टर / व्यापारी घूस देकर कॉन्ट्रैक्ट अपने नाम करवा लेता है। अगर आप उससे पूछेंगे की वह ऐसा क्यों करता है, तो उसका जवाब होगा की सही तरीके से वह सारी जरूरतें नहीं पूरी कर सकता और चूँकि सरकार विफल है ( लेख के शुरुआत के कुछ पॉइंट्स ) इसलिए ये उसकी मजबूरी है।

अब वो घटिया काम महँगे दाम पर करता है । और एक सरकारी अफ़सर से घूस देकर पास करा लेता है। अगर आप उस अफसर से पुछेंगे की वो ऐसा क्यों करता है तो उसका जवाब भी कुछ ऐसा ही होगा।

इसी तरह का जवाब आपको किसी थोक विक्रेता से भी मिलेगा जो टैक्स चोरी अपना अधिकार समझते है।

इसी तरह बहुत लोग टैक्स चोरी और घूस को गलत नहीं, बल्कि उनका अधिकार समझते हैं। यह नहीं समझते की उनकी वजह से देश और सरकार सही काम नहीं कर पा रही। सभी दूसरों की ज्यादा गलती दिखा कर अपनी छोटी गलती को सही बता देतें हैं।

ये सरकारी अफसर, ये व्यापारी, टैक्स चोरी करने वाले प्रोफेशनल हम में से ही एक है और सबके पास टैक्स चोरी करने का कारण दूसरों की ग़लती है।

देश की करीब 80-90% जनता को टैक्स देने की जरुरत नहीं है, क्योंकि उनकी आमदनी कम है। अगर बांकी 10-20% जनता जो दूसरों की गलती दिखा कर अपनी टैक्स चोरी को सही बताते हैं, टैक्स देने लग जाये, और घूस लेना बंद करदें तो सारी प्रॉब्लम दूर हो जाएगी।

सारा टैक्स सही जगह पर खर्च होगा। शायद देश को लोन न लेना पड़े और हम व्याज के अलावा मुलधन भी चूका पायें।

अगर एक आदमी जो टैक्स देने के लायक है और टैक्स नहीं देता है, तो उसके बदले या तो टैक्स देने वाले व्यक्ति  को ज्यादा टैक्स देना पड़ता है या सरकार को लोन ज्यादा लेना पड़ता है।

अब आप खुद समझदार हैं। अगर सब लोग अपनी टैक्स चोरी और घूसख़ोरी को बंद कर दें तो सरकार अपने आप सही काम करेगी। और हमारी सारी ख़्वाइसे पूरी हो जायेगी।

सरकार हम से ही बना है, और इसे हम मिलजुल कर चला रहे हैं।

Rising above political affiliations !

Can and Should we remain apolitical?

Whether we like it or not, we will be governed by some person or the other and by some political party.

The government will take some decisions, some of them will be liked by us, some may not. That applies to all governments, whether we have voted that party or not.

Does it mean we let the government take any decision sitting idle, if we have voted to the party?

Does it mean, we oppose every move by the government we have not voted?

We can say that the answer to both these question are No.

And say that we will remain apolitical and raise questions on dubious decisions and support decision which are taken for the good cause.

But we have to vote only one party in the elections.

Does it mean we don't vote, and remain apolitical?

The country will be in disaster if we don't vote. We will continue to have folks who are elected by people based on cast/religion, ethnicity etc.

We have to vote and we should vote. For voting we need to have a political inclination towards some party or the other and that is not bad.

Every political party is formed to fight for some good cause and has some core values. It means there are some good in most mainstream political parties.

We have so many good parties to chose from?

That looks like a good problem to have. Chose the party with which we can relate most. We don't need to agree to all the philosophies of that party, neither disagree completely with other party.

Since we need to chose one, we have to chose one.

We have voted. Now what?

The party that forms the government, may or may not be of the party we voted.

After the government is formed, we have to behave exactly in the same manner, whether the government is of the party we voted or of some other party.

We need to support good decisions and protest bad ones irrespective of which government is taking the decisions.

Our support and protest needs to be always agenda based. Never be based on party we voted.

While protesting, keep in mind that some decisions are taken for the benefit of a particular section of society and may not be liked by another. Does it mean, we should not protest. We should and let our concerned be heard with some constructive suggestions.

There are hardly any decision that will make every person happy. e.g.  reservations make reserved class happy and unreserved unhappy. Subsidy on electricity/water are liked by people getting it, but tax increase due to this subsidy is not liked by tax paying class.

We have to grow as a society where we agree to live with difference of opinions.

We do not need to endorse either all or none philosophy of a party.

We all should be fine with some folks supporting a cause and some not.

When we all start to support a cause rather than a party, irrespective of which party we vote, we would be living in a much better place and no political party can take advantage of support for their last cause as a guarantee for support to a new one which might be bad.

Step by step guide to go cashless now in India

India is composed of 68% population living in rural areas and as of now only around 30% of India's population have smart phones. 

Smart phone penetration will continue to rise steadily over coming years but even with current growth rate we would still be short of a reasonable number to target a smart phone only solution even after 3 years.

Where as the total phone penetration in India is more than 1 Billion and almost every person has a mobile phone. Though around 70% of them are basic feature phones.

We need to have a solution for these 70% population, then only India can go truly cashless.

Though we can make the cashless solution much easier, We have the technology available with us to bring all of these population on board and start using cashless transaction right now.

Here is how to pay:

A. Situation: You are a smart phone user with internet and the recipient is a basic phone user and basic phone user is not registered with mobile banking but has a bank account.

1. Install the UPI app of your bank. 
2. Register and link your bank account in your app. 
3. Select pay via Account and IFSC code. 
4. Ask for account number and IFSC code from recipient. If he doesn't remember IFSC, ask for bank branch and search on google for IFSC for that bank branch. 
5. Specify account number and IFSC, enter amount to transfer and OK, you might be asked for a PIN, enter the PIN with which you registered the UPI app and you are done .

B. Situation: You are a smart phone user with internet and the recipient is also a smart phone user with internet.

1. Both of you register for UPI as specified in situation A
2. Initiate a transfer from your UPI app and select transfer using vpa.
3. Ask for the vpa of the recipient and enter it in your UPI app.
4. Enter amount to transfer. and OK
5. Enter PIN if asked and you are done

C. Situation: You are a smart phone user with internet and recipient is basic phone user, registered for mobile banking and has a MMID (refer to later section, how to get an MMID)

1. Register for UPI as per situation A.
2. Initiate a transfer from UPI app and select transfer using mobile number and MMID
3. Ask for mobile number and MMID from recipient
4. Enter mobile number and MMID in your app
5. Enter amount to transfer and OK
6. Enter PIN if asked and you are done

D. Situation: You are a basic phone user or smart phone user without internet and the recipient is a basic phone user and not registered with mobile banking

1. You register for mobile banking if not already registered. Many banks allow registering for mobile banking by simply sending an SMS. Refer to NPCI link  to know about how to register for mobile banking and get an MMID for your bank. 
2. Ask for Bank Account and IFSC code from the recipient. IFSC code is mentioned on the check book. 
3. Get the Modal code of your bank and remember it. The link is http://www.npci.org.in/documents/List-of-Banks-with-IFSC-and-short-name.pdf e.g. for HDFC it is *99*43#, for ICICI it is *99*44#
4. Dial this number for your bank.
5. Generate and change MPIN by pressing 7 and clicking send
6. Follow instruction to generate the mpin by providing all the details when asked.
7. Select 4 (Send money using IFSC) and click send
8. Enter IFSC and send
9. Enter Account number and send
10. Enter PIN when asked and you are done.

One you have registered for mobile banking, You only need to perform step 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

E. Situation: You are a basic phone user and recipient is register mobile banking user with who has MMID

1. Follow steps in Situation D to register for mobile banking 
2. Dial the the multi-modal code for your bank. The link to get the multi modal code is http://www.npci.org.in/documents/List-of-Banks-with-IFSC-and-short-name.pdf 
3. Select 3 (Pay using MMID)
4. Ask for MMID and mobile number from the recipient
5. Enter MMID when asked and send
6. Enter mobile number when asked and send
7. Enter amount to transfer and send
8. Enter mPIN when asked and you are done

Proposal : How to make India cashless and make #demonitization a turning point in India's history

I am really very happy with this great and bold move by our PM and the govt. It takes lot of will power and conviction to take this kind of bold decision which are opposed by so many folks and may be from close friends as well. 

Now that we have taken this decision and I am sure there are more qualified folks than me who must be thinking all the best strategies to get to the ultimate goal of no corruption, no black money, no terrorism funding, no hawala, and fully transparent and cashless economy. 

Please consider my point of view as a view of common citizen of India and all my point of view are based on observation of surroundings, my interest and my profession.

1. Exclusive focus on One payment channel: 

Currently we have multiple payment channels and we are promoting all, e.g. Card, Digital wallets, UPI, IMPS and *99#. Most common people get confused which to use when. Though folks like me would use whatever is available, most folks are clubbing *99# along with other channels and even don't bother to try it. Govt. should exclusively focus on *99# service so it becomes the only way people try in rural areas. *99# works on basic phones and does not require internet. As I heard around 65% of phones are still basic, our focus would be justified. Though NPCI can continue to work on UPI and other future channels, but current focus should be to bring most rural population on board. If they think about mobile payment, they should think about *99#. 

If other qualified folks feel, we have better and more convinient channel other than *99# which works on basic phone without internet, we can go for that, but we need to choose one.

2. Making *99# service a seamless experience.

We have to ensure that anyone who tries it, becomes successful the very first time. We can learn from the 3rd party apps such as Paytm, and other wallets. They have made using their app for the first time so easy that one people use it, they know how to use it. 

Though our *99# service is good and works on all phones, it is still difficult and many times people are not successful in first attempt and they give up. We need to address following issues to make it seamless.

* Many banks still require people to go to bank to register for mobile banking. Which is required for *99# service to send money. Though many banks have made it easy by simply sending a SMS from users registered mobile. We need to ask all banks to make it very easy to register for mobile banking. This can be done from back-end and avoid lot of unnecessary queue in the banks.

* Making payment to a mobile number successful. Currently *99# requires MMID along with mobile number. Though technically it looks as designed to have MMID to support multiple accounts for same mobile number, but we can have a concept of default account number associated with a mobile number. e.g. If I have 3 accounts with same mobile number, I can make one of them as default for sending and receiving money. Again we can learn from 3rd party wallets. Their USP is that it is very easy and only require a mobile number of receiver. We need to make sending money very easy to a mobile number. Our system from back end should map to a default MMID and credit appropriately. We are having similar concept with UPI, but UPI is not feasible on basic phones so we need to port this good feature to *99#.

*  A universal number for sending money. Once we have made paying to any mobile number, we can dedicate one sequence, e.g. *99*5*<mobile no>*<amount># dial. It should ask for pin and you are done. So everyone just dial a sequence to pay, and they are done. It should be so easy. we don't need so many menus to traverse before actually sending money. Everyone just need to display their mobile number on their shop. 

I think we have made a great technology, but we still have not made it accessible to people. It has a great potential to change how people transact. Everyone should just dial a number to send the money. 

3. Incentivise payment via the mobile channel (*99#) we have selected

People in India are addicted to freebies. That is how 3rd party startups and corporate acquires users. We can offer a cash-back or discount of INR 50 (or any amount) per transaction for first 10 transaction. I am sure people would try to get INR 500 and in the process get used to paying via this channel. We can even offer discounts at govt. stores to some limit if paid via this promoted channel. 

4. Mandatory enablement of receiving payments via *99# channel at all govt counters. 

We need to make sure that all govt. counters which receive money via cash, must display the mobile number which would receive the payment from the channel So a person goes to a counter to buy a railway ticket or pay a bill or buy some seeds or do speed post in post-office, the counter person asks for money. The person dials the number *99*5*mobileno*amount# and enters PIN and he/she should be done. All these counters must be enabled to accept payment from this channel. 

5. Incentivise shops/business who accepts payment via this channel.

Shops and businesses which accepts payment via this channel, give them some incentives initially to bring them onboard. May be inform of some cash-back or tax-credit.

6. Massive campaign to promote this channel.

Now that we have every thing setup, we have to promote this to everyone. Just look at how Paytm and others are promoting on every Radio/TV every few minutes. We have to have a similar campaign. Every TV/Radio channel should broad cast this payment channel. The campaign should be on the similar lines as swatch bharat as we are investing in future of India. Once we bring most folks on board we have turned the table to growth. 

7. Dedicated toll free phone number and/or appoint a mobile payment expert per village to help people get onto this channel.

Once we start to promote it, people will start to try it. We need the support infrastructure. We can hire part time college students for one or two months to educate people to start using this service. 

We have to treat *99# channel as product and promote it like a corporate, I am sure we can become very successful. If 3rd party wallets can make huge success, I am sure with such a huge machinery behind us, we would be successful.

Please do let me know if you need my service for betterment of our country. .\I am willing to participate at any level of discussion and execution.

About Me:

Personally, I am a firm believer in social harmony and justice to all. Freedom to all to do what is right and hate corruption and any kind of evil. Professionally, I am working as a Senior Computer Scientist with Adobe Systems.

Sanjay Kumar

A proud citizen of India, want to make it one of the best in the world.