On my way back home, during my bus ride, as usual, India's Nehruvian rate of growth struck me and I was trying to find a solution to many problems.
Democracy gives importance to numbers. Mere numbers. Crooked politicians manipulate these numbers to gain absolute power. They use tax payer's money like their own and use it to gain popularity with the numbers. Bestow them with free education (not loans) and barter votes for favour or cash. The taxes we pay go into a pool and are (mis)used by the politicians.
How do I as a tax payer ensure that the money I pay as taxes goes where I want it to. Here comes the solution:
The government of India should float an India Fund. The sectors of investment should be education, health, defense, infrastructure etc. Every tax payer should be allowed to pay his taxes by directly putting his money in either/all of these sector funds. This way rather than the vote, every tax paying citizen will have a direct control over how his government allocates funds. He can then use the vote to ensure that each of these funds are spent judiciously.
The government will of-course want to do something for the poor. Then the government should earn its own money by providing value added services.
If the tax payers see that they are not reaping the benefit by 'investing' their taxes in a certain sector, the corpus of that sector will start decreasing. This is an indication to the government to increase the efficiency.
If the government wants to start a new project in a certain sector, they should bring out a detail project report which should be made public. The project report should be such that it should attract tax payers to invest in the sector. We can also provide a little flexibility by allowing a certain percentage of fund to be transfered from one sector to the other.
It may seem at first that the general tax payer will not invest in sectors like education and health as he can avail the facilities from private suppliers. But the tax paying citizen also gets a certain benefit from the education and good health of the people around who cannot afford private services. Hence everyone will certainly make some contribution to the 'uplifting the poor'.
Sole intention is to have some control over where my tax money goes. What do you think?
Democracy gives importance to numbers. Mere numbers. Crooked politicians manipulate these numbers to gain absolute power. They use tax payer's money like their own and use it to gain popularity with the numbers. Bestow them with free education (not loans) and barter votes for favour or cash. The taxes we pay go into a pool and are (mis)used by the politicians.
How do I as a tax payer ensure that the money I pay as taxes goes where I want it to. Here comes the solution:
The government of India should float an India Fund. The sectors of investment should be education, health, defense, infrastructure etc. Every tax payer should be allowed to pay his taxes by directly putting his money in either/all of these sector funds. This way rather than the vote, every tax paying citizen will have a direct control over how his government allocates funds. He can then use the vote to ensure that each of these funds are spent judiciously.
The government will of-course want to do something for the poor. Then the government should earn its own money by providing value added services.
If the tax payers see that they are not reaping the benefit by 'investing' their taxes in a certain sector, the corpus of that sector will start decreasing. This is an indication to the government to increase the efficiency.
If the government wants to start a new project in a certain sector, they should bring out a detail project report which should be made public. The project report should be such that it should attract tax payers to invest in the sector. We can also provide a little flexibility by allowing a certain percentage of fund to be transfered from one sector to the other.
It may seem at first that the general tax payer will not invest in sectors like education and health as he can avail the facilities from private suppliers. But the tax paying citizen also gets a certain benefit from the education and good health of the people around who cannot afford private services. Hence everyone will certainly make some contribution to the 'uplifting the poor'.
Sole intention is to have some control over where my tax money goes. What do you think?
Comments
This would be very effective if implemented for the betterment of the people, in this way VOTE will be very valued one indeed, but certain segment like rural development might need to be taken care, as i dought that tax wont be accumulated towards this,
few years back, Education Cess was introduced by the Finance Ministry and it was 2% of the taxed value which was dedicated towards education,, well this was another way to attract tax payers also.
well in the larger interest if everyone does start paying the right amount of tax then that would be the best thing to ever happen in INDIA...
I think it would be better if it were made an "opt-in" system, where if you have any specific choice, then you make it known, or else the money goes into a general pool which will be used as the government sees fit. That way the people with the desire to allocate their tax money well get to while those who would have made uninformed choices are prevented from doing so.
@ Kalpesh. Swami will write a column about it hopefully in the Slimes of India; Chidu (as i fondly call him for his chubby cheeks and the round spectacle studios look) will not implement this idea. Because uski shendi ek firang ke haath mein hei...jo saare desh ki shendi apne haath mein rakhna chahti hei
On a serious note, the first commandment of politics is that though shall not make any policy that takes away power from you
Creating such a fund will take away politicians power of allocating funds. As a solution, someday I may enter active politics with such brilliant ideas of mine :-)
@clueso
A general pool is indeed an option that every tax payer should be given. This option will be utilised when the tax payer trusts the decision making of the elected representative and is sure that the funds from the pool will be utilised judiciously. As I said, there is a benefit that every one draws from the development of non-related areas (like remote villages, the slum dwellers etc.) I am hence sure that every tax payer will definitely put some part of his tax into that corpus. Besides, as I have always been stressing that politicians use the underprivileged masses to get elected by showering them with favours from our tax money. To make this right, I say, if tax payers are not putting in money, let the politicians earn the money through government services and use it to give favours to the masses and then get elected. At least that would be a reward to give a competitive service.
...the comment is a post in itself :-)