1. Tax surcharge on the super rich is a bad idea. That’s because translated on terra firma, the taxman wants us to believe we have less than 45,000 crorepatis.

Complete nonsense!

The surcharge is a penalty on those who are foolish enough to declare such income. They’ll pay a 10 percent surcharge for their stupidity. That’s nearly 45 percent in direct tax, not to mention the cascading impact of indirect taxation. Is India trying to tell top-end knowledge workers that they’re no longer wanted?

Meanwhile, the wilier ones – the big-ticket tax dodgers, sometimes the ones who employ these Rs 1-crore assessees – will continue to get away.

There has to be something terribly wrong in this.

Isn’t this is economy where by their own disclosures, BMW sold 9,375 cars; Audi sold 9,003; Mercedes sold 7,138 in 2012 alone? Surely all these proud owners were crorepatis too. So, also those who bought these toys in earlier years and those who prefer classier stuff like Bentley and Rolls Royce.

But the FM thinks we have only 45k super rich!

Chanakya, the astute commentator has been warning us since 2,300 years ago, a state that allows ‘do number ke ameer’ to flourish is bound to fail.
 
2. Special bank for women. Utterly insulting to Indian women, if not constitutionally suspect. I could understand women thanas or women compartments in the metro. But banks! What’s coming up next…women post offices, all-women women buses. We certainly have the cup brimming with tokenism.

Women can bring in 2x the amount of gold than a man can. Hmmm…I still have to hear the critique from constitutional lawyers, but may be, meanwhile, Manish Tewari should offer some broadcast licences for all-women news channels and Kapil Sibal can match up with 33 percent incentives in licence fee for women-owned telcos!
 
3. It’s the headline with which CNN-IBN anchorman Rajdeep Sardesai opened his post-budget analysis: Service tax if you’re swinging by a restaurant that has an AC!

That’s penalising the youth visiting a battered Barista, Café Coffee Day and telling them they’re in the same class as the Maurya. The logic that there’s no difference between them and swanky ‘boozeries’ which are already covered by service tax is insane.

The distinction, our Harvard-educated FM tells us, is “artificial”.

A country that hasn’t had the guts to slam service tax on lawyers – Why else do we have the kinds of legal eagles Salman Khurshid, Kapil Sibal, Arun Jaitley, Ashwini Kumar and Chidambaram himself at the helm? – wants to penalise young 24-year olds sipping coffee at the end of a 12-hour work day.

Shame!

Unrealised taxes, tokenism, and failing the youth – while pandering to lawyers – flunk the test I set up for PC as the mahout to steer the doddering elephant and the #IndiaStory.