Taxing made simpler

This is with reference to ‘Tax deduction or exemption? The Difference’ by Anand Dalmia (February 12). There is a simple but effective way of increasing taxpayer base. Instead of having slabs in IT rates from nil to 10 or 20 or 30 per cent and complicated applications of exemptions, the tax department can tweak the slab or charge at a progressive rate starting from 1 per cent or so; this can go up to 30 per cent, depending on income, with no complications. All income generation should attract income tax, however small the income may be. This is in line with taxing gain on sale of securities through STT, already in vogue for capital market financial transactions.

Bengaluru

This refers to ‘Goodbye to prudent fiscal management’ by RK Patnaik and Jagdish Rattanani (February12). While the earlier Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act had recommended various checks and controls before doing away with revenue deficit target, those requirements have not been met before doing away with the same.

To cite some examples, according to the provisions of the FRBM Act, the Government should achieve revenue surplus, and it should not resort to borrowings from RBI except for temporary advances. The revenue deficit and fiscal deficit may exceed the targets specified in the rules only on grounds of national security, calamity, etc. Simply doing away with revenue deficit target without adhering to the essential provisions as given under the FRBM Act would only lead to further financial indiscipline.

Chennai

The Government has taken a good step by allocating funds to improve healthcare. But lack of attention to infrastructure and low coverage of insurance are the drawbacks.

However, if the Government is targetting the bottom 40 per cent of the population, it should ensure that all these come under the scheme. Instead of allocating a huge budget directly it would have been better if the Government built hospitals and create related infrastructure in association with State governments. A major problem is the misuse of funds by private hospitals. The budget should take into consideration every aspect of healthy policy.

Hyderabad

IT firms have resorted to automation of bread-and-butter operational processes to achieve the required economies of scale. The approach has reduced headcount, increased efficiency and improved overall profit margins.

However, complex functional requirements and analytical problems call for a specialised workforce. The sector is therefore exploring crowdsourcing as an option to build a flexible/on-demand skilled workforce in a short span of time and institutionalise the processes.

While this is a useful, result-oriented, short-term strategy to expedite the execution of complex/lengthy projects, it is difficult to establish crowdsourcing as a viable business model. Although crowdsourced assignments are usually cost effective and benefit from creativity and diversity in ideas, their success is impeded by poor confidentiality, communication gaps within teams, prioritisation of quantity over quality, task ownershipaAmbiguities, inconsistent project management styles and copyright/marketing conflicts.

Delhi

It would be more convenient if all the information with the I-T department about an assessee collected from various sources is also made available in Form 26AS and automatically uploaded in the I-T ‘pre-filled’ forms at the time of e-filing, with the option to edit it to make corrections. And it would be much better if the previous year’s I-T return filed is made available — including changes which are not relevant in the current assessment year — in the ‘pre-filled’ form .

This would help the assessee fill correct figures. This would also reduce the burden on the I-T department to issue scrutiny notices.

New Delhi