An occupying force.

Taxation is a form of oppression, exploitation and extortion legitimised by so called democracy. Some taxes are necessary to pay the salaries of armed forces, police and fire departments but most of our money is wasted on criminal politicians and thieving civil servants. In the US politicians, especially Republicans, are committed to low taxes but in India there is a conspiracy of silence among all politicians to tax the people into poverty. There is a deafening clamor for low interest rates which, according to an article in the New York Times, is an insidious form of taxation. Low interest rate helps the government most of all because it is the largest borrower. Our government borrows Rs 6 trillion a year and a 1% drop in interest rate means a saving of Rs 60 billion. However low interest rate means less interest on savings. In the US interest rate is 0.5% but inflation is 2.5% which means that savings lose 2% more in value than interest earned. In China the government forces banks to keep interest rate low so people invest in properties to get real returns, leading to a property bubble. In India property prices went up by over 1000% from 2002 to 2011 and have increased by 10% in the first quarter of this fiscal. Gold is hitting record levels everyday even as the cost has zoomed to Rs 32,328/10gm. Gold import costs $60 billion/year adding to the Current Account Deficit. So, the government is making us pay in lost savings what it saves in interest payments, which is a tax on savers. Recently the scoundrels have thought up a new wheeze to add to our burden. Politicians are contemplating a law to force men to pay their wives for housework. As Rupa Subramanya pointed out in wsj.com how do you calculate the value of housework. A woman who has stopped working to look after babies can point to a loss of salary but a woman who has never worked cannot point to any loss of income. Actually this is an absolute lie because men are being prevented from investing in their wives by our tax laws. For instance, a rich man, who is paying income tax at the highest rate, buys an apartment in his wife's name and rents it out. If the wife is allowed to show the rent as her income then the first Rs 190,000 will not attract any income tax after which the rate will be 10% up to Rs 500,000, 20% up to Rs 800,000 and 30% on income above that. This means that the man saves a lot of money on tax by shifting his savings to his wife. For the woman becoming a taxpayer will entitle her to bank loans for further investments and, in case the marriage breaks up, she does not have to go to court to beg for maintenance. But our tax laws will not allow that. Instead the rent will be clubbed with the man's income and taxed at 30%. So insatiable is the greed of these villains that they devise ever devious laws to squeeze money out of hapless citizens. So, to pretend sympathy for housewives is the most shameless hypocrisy imaginable. Ours is not a government for the people but a rapacious occupying force.