Tax dreams.

"Within a week of taking over the reins of (Rishi Sunak) administration, the UK Secretary of Trade for International Trade updated the parliament about the progress made in the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with India. MPs were told that agreement had been reached on 16 of the identified 26 policy areas." DH. "Meanwhile, in India, all that we, the citizens, (tipplers included), get to know from unnamed government sources is the probable date by which this FTA might be signed, if at all." At the same time, the Indian government follows a policy of 'Make in India'. wikipedia. If we are to make everything within our borders what is the UK going to trade with us? "India doesn't have real industrial policy as such. What it has instead are multiple government schemes, costing about Rs 2 trillion, for 'production linked incentives' or PLIs. These are effectively subsidies or special treatment for large investments in particular sectors - 14 of them at last count," wrote Mihir Sharma. "Companies are supposed to be able to read an industrial policy and have faith that the government's commitment to a sector is firm." "Government assistance for lucky steel producers came with a built-in production and export targets. Yet, a few months after setting the targets, the same government unexpectedly introduced an export tax on the same steel products." Long term investment planning becomes difficult because of frequent changes in taxes for companies, as well as individuals. "The government is examining changes to the capital gains tax regime to make it simpler, including rationalisation of the multiple holding periods, officials said." ET. "Parity within asset classes will be a key consideration in the review that may even consider changes in tax rate." "Simpler", "rationalisation" and "changes" are just weasel words for increase. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has subjected savers, a large section of whom are retired senior citizens, to severe financial repression by keeping interest rates lower than the rate of inflation for years. Hindu. That, compounded by the fall in the value of the rupee, has severely reduced the value of savings. In a desperate bid to increase returns people have resorted to investing in shares and mutual funds. From 40.9 million in March 2020, the number of demat accounts (dematerialised accounts essential for investing in equities) have exploded to over 100 million by August 2022. TOI. Already there are taxes on transactions in stocks. The Securities Transaction Tax of 0.1% is collected at source on the sale of securities such as shares. cleartax. The Dividend Distribution Tax of at least 17.65% is deducted by the company at the time of distributing dividends to shareholders. cleartax. Now the government is contemplating hacking capital gains. When taxes become extortion money stays away. "As of October 2022, none of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies have chosen to locate the Asia-Pacific headquarters in the country," wrote Palakh Jain & Shreya Ganguly. India will be a $30 trillion economy by 2047, said Minister Piyush Goyal. Imagine how much tax that will fetch. Glorious dreams.