"More tears are shed
over answered prayers than unanswered ones."
—Saint Teresa of Avila
(Spanish, 1515-1582)
Word for the day
Inscape (n)
The unique essence or inner
nature of a person, place, thing, or event, especially depicted in poetry or a
work of art.
Malice towards none
What kind of parents would
buy question papers for their children?
How far they think, could
their children travel with these broken crutches they are buying?
First random thought this morning
The furor seen over the CBSE decision to conduct a fresh examination
in cases where examination paper were found to be fraudulently leaked
beforehand, is unprecedented.
Even a decade back, students and parents would have accepted the
decision of the board and government as fait accompli and moved on. The
Society, in that sense is certainly more aware and evolved. It actively and
assertively seeks more transparency and accountability for government decisions
and actions.
I am not sure whether the government is recognizing this change in
the society, because it does have some answers to provide before 2019
elections.
GST - A winner
Over the long weekend last week, I
met a variety of people. I also visited some key NCR markets to feel the
sentiments. I think it appropriate to share some of my impressions with my
readers.
The best thing I discovered was
the dramatic change in people's behavior with regard to GST. Almost everyone
seems to have accepted GST as intrinsic to their business. The teething
troubles witnessed earlier seems to be easing. Systems are stabilizing.
I even saw a wholesale textile
trader guiding and training his buyers from small towns in UP and MP about GST.
Very interestingly, he was guiding them why and how they should gradually move
from 'cash only' dealings to 'cheque dealings'. He even has set 31st March 2019
as deadline for accepting cash payments from them.
Insofar as the persistently poor
GST collection data is concerned, based on my interaction with some businessmen
and tax professionals, I presume there is huge leakage in GST. A number of
unscrupulous businessmen, aided by tax professionals, are able not only to
evade payment of GST, but are also fraudulently claiming refunds. I am sure the
authorities are aware of this and working on this. This leakage might take few
more quarters to plug. In the meantime, many genuine tax payers may suffer due
to delayed refunds. Of course, there is no denying that delays in refunds, to
some extent could be due to deliberate delaying tactics by tax authorities to
manage the budgeted tax collection targets.
Nonetheless, my impression is that
from FY20 onwards, GST will indeed prove to be the boon for Indian economy, as
it was originally expected.
I do not say it because I feel
that tax revenue will grow due to this. I feel so, because this will likely
bring an important behavioral change in the typical Indian businessmen.
Notwithstanding with what the
famous World Bank (see here) report said about Indian GST, my impression is
that, once stable, it will make doing business really easy. Moreover, it will
add scalability to the businesses, which was hitherto hindered by petty tax
avoidance considerations.
A chance meeting with a senior
revenue officer was also quite enlightening.
The officer believes that
"the Indian economy has never been so fragmented. It seems there are
thousands of unconnected silos.
There are some segments of the
economy that are doing extremely well. There are some which are just tagging
along — helpless and worried about future. There are some which are taking risk
of making large investment in transformative technology and business practices
to adapt to new age business paradigm. But there is a large segment that is
seriously distressed. This segment may not be too large in terms of business
volumes, tax revenue or overall profitability, but still remains a key to
consumption.
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