Taxation policy is interesting. Taxation is not only a way of getting money for the government to run but is also a very useful tool to drive the direction of investment and capital. There are opportunities provided by the government for saving on taxes, if an individual or a corporation invests in a particular sector. The final benefits of those tax savings might go to
Location: The government might reduce tax for companies setting up shops in a particular state which might have few industries or natural resources to drive industrialization to itself. The low taxation regimes of uttaranchal and union territories are prominent examples of location based tax advantages.
Sector: The government might give tax holidays to certain sectors of industry so as to provide incentive for those sectors to grow up. IT and ITES are among the prominent examples, of sectors that enjoy tax holiday.
RBI: I am not sure whether Reserve bank of India or the Federal bank of any country would be the direct benefitiary. But government provides incentives for investements that are able to garner Foreign Exchange. The recent enactment of SEZ act is one of the prominent example of such kind of taxation benefits.
Social Cause: I am not aware of anything in India, but tax incentives are provided to companies in China which employ a certain percentage of disabled people. Recently talks have been doing rounds in India, for providing tax incentives to companies that employ a certain section of people(SC,ST,OBC)
In essence depending on the policy of the government, it can change the direction of investment by making a sector or location lucrative with respect to others. These were the broad ways in which govenment directs the spending/investment of companies. At the same time the government also works at a micro level to encourage people to spend/invest their money in particular activities.
Education: The government provides tax benefits to people who for their education purpose availed Education loans. This is indirectly an incentive for poor people to avail loans for higher education.
Housing: The government'c commitment towards providing housing for people is also reflected in its providing of tax benefits for home loans.
Women upliftment: There also singnificant benefits provided to women folk for their upliftment. Their taxation is lower than that of men. Also property held on their name is charged less (Have no idea wht that means).
While all these ways are used for bettering the lot of the deprived ones. These tools are often used by unscrupulos people to deprive the government of the tax it owes. So there can be several ways that the taxation policy can be made. In India people are charged on the basis of their income. It simply means that you show your income and are taxed on that amount. At the same time, people talk of taxation at the point of consumption. I had a long argument with one of my friend (Ashwin) over this issue. He was hell bent on the idea of implementing the the point-of-consumption idea. The idea sounds cool and is supposedly cool. But i had only one contention over the proposal. Do you tax the poor and the rich the same way? This is something that is more dependent on heart rather than logic. And there are stuations where you can't always resort to logic. I have always believed that "one of the important roles of the government is to remove the demarcations created by nature." The demarcations are primarily based on lines of being rich/poor or disability. The role of government in these circumstances is to give the same opportunities to everyone, regardless of his/her birth. Also I believe that in a democratic system the rich get much more benefit from the society than the poor. They have access to water, electricity, roads which one cannot find in the hamlets of our noth-east. Considering this line of argument, if the taxation policy gets changed to point-of-consumption then every individual regardless of being rich or poor will have to pay taxes. Therefore i definately do not confirm with this point-of-consumption taxation policy. However i am sure that the consumption habit of individual reveals a lot about his income level and therefore can be a useful check on black money. I can only imagine how complex issues might crop up, considering the level of diversity we have in India. But never the less, the formulation of the taxation policy would be interesting.
Location: The government might reduce tax for companies setting up shops in a particular state which might have few industries or natural resources to drive industrialization to itself. The low taxation regimes of uttaranchal and union territories are prominent examples of location based tax advantages.
Sector: The government might give tax holidays to certain sectors of industry so as to provide incentive for those sectors to grow up. IT and ITES are among the prominent examples, of sectors that enjoy tax holiday.
RBI: I am not sure whether Reserve bank of India or the Federal bank of any country would be the direct benefitiary. But government provides incentives for investements that are able to garner Foreign Exchange. The recent enactment of SEZ act is one of the prominent example of such kind of taxation benefits.
Social Cause: I am not aware of anything in India, but tax incentives are provided to companies in China which employ a certain percentage of disabled people. Recently talks have been doing rounds in India, for providing tax incentives to companies that employ a certain section of people(SC,ST,OBC)
In essence depending on the policy of the government, it can change the direction of investment by making a sector or location lucrative with respect to others. These were the broad ways in which govenment directs the spending/investment of companies. At the same time the government also works at a micro level to encourage people to spend/invest their money in particular activities.
Education: The government provides tax benefits to people who for their education purpose availed Education loans. This is indirectly an incentive for poor people to avail loans for higher education.
Housing: The government'c commitment towards providing housing for people is also reflected in its providing of tax benefits for home loans.
Women upliftment: There also singnificant benefits provided to women folk for their upliftment. Their taxation is lower than that of men. Also property held on their name is charged less (Have no idea wht that means).
While all these ways are used for bettering the lot of the deprived ones. These tools are often used by unscrupulos people to deprive the government of the tax it owes. So there can be several ways that the taxation policy can be made. In India people are charged on the basis of their income. It simply means that you show your income and are taxed on that amount. At the same time, people talk of taxation at the point of consumption. I had a long argument with one of my friend (Ashwin) over this issue. He was hell bent on the idea of implementing the the point-of-consumption idea. The idea sounds cool and is supposedly cool. But i had only one contention over the proposal. Do you tax the poor and the rich the same way? This is something that is more dependent on heart rather than logic. And there are stuations where you can't always resort to logic. I have always believed that "one of the important roles of the government is to remove the demarcations created by nature." The demarcations are primarily based on lines of being rich/poor or disability. The role of government in these circumstances is to give the same opportunities to everyone, regardless of his/her birth. Also I believe that in a democratic system the rich get much more benefit from the society than the poor. They have access to water, electricity, roads which one cannot find in the hamlets of our noth-east. Considering this line of argument, if the taxation policy gets changed to point-of-consumption then every individual regardless of being rich or poor will have to pay taxes. Therefore i definately do not confirm with this point-of-consumption taxation policy. However i am sure that the consumption habit of individual reveals a lot about his income level and therefore can be a useful check on black money. I can only imagine how complex issues might crop up, considering the level of diversity we have in India. But never the less, the formulation of the taxation policy would be interesting.
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