Talk of taxing the rich at last.

Dr.T.V.Gopalakrishnan (Fort Worth, Tx)
At last Mr Chidambaram is talking sense.All over the world the move is to tax the richest and wealthiest people to take the economy out of the woods and in India the Govt thinks of abolishing the Security Transaction Tax which is paid basically by people who enjoy excess funds and speculate in the market out of greed and make more wealth. The rich who invest in markets earns dividend in crores of Rs do not pay any tax. They are not affected by inflation as they have both black money and white money to exploit the economy in all possible ways. They trade in commodities like gold and silver and that too using cash. They also trade in real estate like stocks and escape all forms of taxes. The limit for wealth tax has been substantially hiked and many do not pay wealth tax. The economy expects to fill its kitty by direct and indirect taxes making the life of common man miserable. It is time to have an asessment of the gap between the rich and poor over the last two decades in particular and evaluate the performance of the Govt. Rich has become richer and the poor has become poorer. The rate of growth of wealth has been exhorbitant and the black money generation is at its peak. The economy after the reforms has done well but the benefits have gone to the well off of the society is a fact to be recognised.The laws favour the wealthy and they rule the economy. Earlier the Govt realises the folly, the better for the Govt and the people.The FM needs a change of his mindset to act.

(This appeared in ET dated 28/09/11).