No Gnu Taxes, Please!!!

Follow us:WhatsappFacebookTwitterTelegram.cls-1{fill:#4d4d4d;}.cls-2{fill:#fff;}Google NewsIt's february- it's spring, what joy, what fun.... oh hell.

It's tax time.

Time to start looking at all your papers for the year. First you decide how much you have to pay in taxes, depending on what your expenses were. Then you decide what's left over to put into tax saving schemes.

Or, first you figure out how much you will put into tax saving schemes and then find out how much you pay in taxes after the rebates. Ok bit of a chicken-and-egg thing that one. Particularly since, forget end of the financial year, I never have anything in my bank account at the end of the financial day even.....

And it doesnt matter how many years you've been paying taxes- just when you think you may have got the hang of it- they spring a new tax on you.

I don't mean to chide Mr. Chid now, but really, we've dealt with surcharges, and taxes, value added, and otherwise, till they are choking the river all the way to the RBI. We've paid at the producer's end, and the reciever's end, the octroi, the trucking tax, probably the pit-stop-and-dhaba tax too.

Now, I am told there's another one.

I went to a particularly elegant dinner event the other night.China and silver all sparkly. Food served in courses.

But when it came to an end- we were ushered to an extremely dodgy looking wash basin and handed paper towels.

Now,I protest mildly, how can you have this lovely meal laden on damask, and then be hauled of to wash your hands in a basin. But before I could address my indignation to mine host, I was take aside by a friend.

"FBT", she whispered. "Huh?" "Faridabad Book Trust?", "Fly Buy Trivandrum?" "Faltoo But Totallycool?".

No, she replied, disgusted- "Can't pull out the finger bowls anymore. Haven't you heard of the Finger Bowl Tax?"

Aha, I said, that's a new one. But thank god for kids that have broken all crockery. No Finger Bowls, no dreaded FBT to pay.

If you want to protest, this is a good time- after all if it is finger bowls today-it could be Fingers and Bowls tomorrow. Particularly since they hope to tax with it all similiarly extravagant 'perks' your company may be giving you right now, like travelling out of town on a meeting, making a phone call for business, even god forbid- if they should put you up at a hotel when you attend that out of town conference or exhibition. On work.

North Block is now clearly unstoppable. Apparently, these are the new ones you should look out for this budget season.

1. Finger Bowl Tax: the big tax this year
2. Dog Walker's tax
3. Birdcage/Goldfish bowl tax (Points 1 and 2 mean that you should probably trade in all pets for a cat)
4. Bungee Jumping tax
5. Landing-on-the-ground-after-Bungee-Jumping tax
6. Aiming for-the-moon-tax
7. Surcharge on aiming-for-the-moon, but missing.
8. Tongue-in-cheek-tax (I am definitely setting aside for this one)

You get the point. Now get cracking on those returns.
About the AuthorSuhasini Haidar Suhasini Haidar is Diplomatic Editor, The Hindu. Earlier, she was a senior editor and prime time anchor for India's leading 24-hour English news chann...Read Morefirst published:January 31, 2006, 18:37 ISTlast updated:January 31, 2006, 18:37 IST
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