TAX

‘Gosh! This is going to kill me one day’ my exclamation caught rare attention of my wife ever filled with bliss while in her Kingdome the kitchen. ‘What has happened? What is going to kill you?’ she came wiping her ever wet palms to some cloth always stuffed to her waist. ‘Look they have increased the Education Cess by a percent point’ I stared at her from above my half rim glasses with popping eyeballs. Surely it was going to make a hole to my pocket while my customers might hardly share me with the difference. She looked deep into my eyes, perhaps thinking I’m growing miser as I age. ‘It is just a percent point on that sixteen percent of the excise duty such a tiny amount, why worry so much, you are impossible!’ and she was about to go leaving me look like a fool seating in our bedroom gallery garden of cactus. ‘Madam, never undermine tax be it tiny or tons. It takes toll of the tax payer in the end just like camel which initially offers to save its head of the outside cold. In the end the camel is inside the tent & poor Arab out in cold’. I compared tax with story of camel & Arab to make her understanding of taxes rather clear. But, if anywhere in the world if anybody declares that his wife takes him seriously & successfully proves it. I think he doesn’t have to do anything to get moksha or salvation. He’s already attained it.

I never knew, by just inkling of the increased Cess what might have happened outside. ‘Eleven rupees sir’ the rickshaw driver demanded in as rude manner as possible, perhaps determined to squeeze the money. He refused to take ten rupees bill which I’ve been giving him for last three months & thirteen days, thanks to halt in rising petroleum products prices. ‘But yesterday you took ten’ I tried to put my point after all it was matter of point not penny. ‘…tax has increased…’ and the way he made face, I understood what he wanted to convey me. It was actually, ‘you silly bum, don’t you read the news paper…’ I sheepishly searched for the coin in my inner pocket & put it onto his sweaty dirty palm & got rid of him.

‘Pay your tax & hold your head high…’ they are not leaving even Ravindranath Tagore too through news papers advertisements on paying Tax, I murmured reciting his ‘Where the mind is without fear & head is held high…’. To discuss the issue I thought of calling a friend who must be equally stressed on the subject of rising taxes. Before I picked up the receiver, it rang & I was amazed to note it was him only; telepathy is this I patted myself. ‘Could you lend me sixty five thousand bucks?’ he opened his mouth without any morning greetings, asking my wellbeing etc. he must be tensed otherwise even over a cup of tea the fellow asks me, ‘so how are you?’ ten times; sipping tea five times, just leave sipping whiskey aside. ‘It is tax I must pay’ he clarified.

I lent him, that night we met over a glass of drinks, the poor fellow was too worried, and he’d postponed his daughters’ marriage to pay the tax by borrowing remaining money from me. ‘Why do we pay tax? I’d refuse paying now. It is we who earn toiling in the sun & pay so much for what? What do we get in return? Corrupt politicians, corrupt government, lethargic society, no social security,…’. He spoke & spoke while I listened. ‘Don’t rub the soap so much’ I cautioned him interrupting him. ‘What soap?’ he raised his thick eyebrows over his red lull eyes. I persisted saying ‘I say don’t rub the soap so much. It consists of taxes up to forty percent. So every time you rub it against your body & hands forty percent of its costs are going to government’.

On paper napkin, we finally drafted the proposal to the government. He said, ‘let’s ask government to take entire of last months’ salary of salaried men or profits of businessmen & give us a pass. No more taxes then after’. I laughed at his innocence, finally we came to the conclusion & drafted our joint proposal that, government should take seventy one point thirty three percent & let us get our daughters married, sons studied, family members get hospitalized & people like us drunk in merry or in grief.

‘How come you arrived at that seventy one point thirty three percent figure?’ wife screamed as if she thought the Finance Minister listened us & he developed complex of squeezing so less so far while public was prepared to pay more. And the fellow was going to call the Secretaries of Direct & Indirect Taxes, Revenue etc. & ask them to make a blue print; it should be called red print I sincerely believe, on what all needs to be done. ‘Look, actually since morning I was trying to type what all we discussed & scribbled onto the paper napkin last night. You know you can’t drink & write’, this sentence I uttered in low tone to save my truthfulness & skin both. ‘Read this’ I handed over my neatly typewritten paper on my electronic typewriter & reached for towel to head towards bathroom. Actually we’d decided yesterday night only to pay less in tax to the government by way of our small small bits. While bathing I decided to use lesser water, cold water so as to not to pay tax on water & electricity. Rub soap lightly only to more sweating area like face, neck, armpits etc. After bathing stand erect & jump twice or thrice to help letting body water drain away by gravity, then wipe remaining water with towel slowly to save tax on buying new towel premature. There are plans to ….

While wife was reading that proposal paper aloud, women are number one in publicizing anything before they happen. Fifty three percent of the seventy percent of the total exchequer may be kept aside for corruption. Twenty three percent for the defense, zero point zero three percent for education, one point thirty two percent on infrastructure development, zero point fifty nine percent on internal security like police, home guards etc. one point ….

‘Since we were not truly agreeing to certain percentage there could be tolerance of five to seven percent point’. I told her seriously, noting even though I finished my bath, she was still reading the same paper with popping her already large eyes.

By

Vijay Yelmelwar