There's some discussion on doing away with Income Tax in India altogether. I think it's a bad idea. I'm not an expert but here's my take.

1. IT has been a way to subsidise goods and services for then poorest of poor. Through these subsidies, the economically backward section of our country make ends meet.

2. Removal of IT means the government cannot fund subsidies.

3. So they will go the indirect tax route. All goods and services will be more expensive - for everyone, including the poor.

@wabbster where is this fuck-all discussion happening?
@Lawandemotions Haha. It was proposed as one of the solutions to boost demand in the economy. Also, this used to be a BJP mantra before 2014. Now that they're in power.... 🙄
@wabbster
If they do that, atleast they'll speed up the revolution.
@wabbster Income from IT is very small also a number of people face difficulty in filing returns..my guess is that only employers will deduct IT and they may remove the tedious job of filing returns for aam admi.instead it will be reversed they will let people know how much IT they need to pay

@harshacgh

It may be small, but is still necessary. Filing returns is necessary for a number of reasons. What if you have multiple sources of income? Also filing returns online is a much simpler task thanks to sites like cleartax, etc. My returns, including the e-verification takes me less than an hour nowadays. Of course, I have only one source, so it's okay.

@harshacgh Also, employers who do TDS, give you form 16. Upload it to a site like cleartax, and everything get fed into the system almost immediately.
@wabbster Same proposal everywhere from populist governments, the only thing oligarchs want to pay tax for is militarization.
@extraneous It's quite sad that people don't think about the ripple effects. It's very selfish.
@wabbster It's interesting to study the history of taxation and infrastructure in UK, the motivator is not compassion but economics...
@extraneous How so? My uneducated guess would be if taxes were lower, it'd boost demand. Which is essentially good for the economy.
@wabbster this is a huge argument in economics - right wing says low tax stimulated demand, left says adequate taxation pays for infrastructure development, stability, inward investment, increased productivity. Historically, my experience is that productivity is higher and life is nicer with left in power (I'm in my 60s so have seen a lot of both approaches to tax).
@extraneous the left argument seems sustainable but long term. Also requires a corruption free society I guess.
@wabbster yes it does - no society is entirely free from corruption but you do need democratically accountable surveillance from press and academics and at least a somewhat reliable judiciary - they will always try to steal your tax, or buy pointless submarines, build too many prisons and not enough schools etc - they have to be watched carefully. This is why corrupt governments hate free press and universities so much - they don't want to be watched