Tax Reform

State of California is implementing a new system where the residents will get pre-filled tax returns. They just need to sign it and return it.
I guess India should replace the Saral form with something similar. This will benefit a large section of Indian taxpayers as most of the 25 Mn taxpayers are in service jobs. In their case it is the employers obligation to scrutinise various documents. Hence even with plethora of deductions available to an Indian Tax Payer, there are no road blocks.With TIN coming in place, already companies are filling their tax challans online. Not only that, but tax payers can also file their return online starting this year. This will be a logical extension to the existing system, and I bet is going to be a huge success.
Actually a better system will be to extend the Online Return Filing to Ordinary Tax Payers and to do away completely with the intermediary involved right now.
Believe me or not, an average Indian is intimidated by the complex thing called Personal Income Tax. More than that they are intimidated by the officials of IT Deptt. Filing a return in the queue and computation of taxes is a big drain on time and I am sure causes a lot of hardships. Computerisation offers salvation to the poor service being offered to the denizens of this country.
DO IT. DO IT. DO IT.

NASDAQ? What exactly is NASDAQ?

Ok, this did hit me like a ton. NASDAQ stands for National Association of Securities Dealers Automatic Quotation System.
Explains what is NASDAQ, NASD, OTC stocks and likes....

Why EPF, PPF are Ponzi schemes!

Why EPF, PPF are Ponzi schemes!
I think the Governement has averted the crisis by moving away from the Defined Benefits pension schemes to Defined Contributions scheme, effective (I think) 1st Jan 2004 for all Central Governement Employees. Nevertheless it would be interesting to do a trend analysis based on Demographic data (there has to be a corelation between Pouplation growth rate and the no. of PPF contributor growth rate), GDP growth rate to arrive at a time frame when EPF, PPF will go bust or may be they wont go bust, but then this has to be analysed.
This can also give important trend lines on liabilities of Central Govt Institutions.

This news made my day...

> One of the best kept secret of Campus 2003 is out...and its official.
> But going by the tradition of cluenatics and inspired by Da Vinci code, you will have to decipher the news by these clues:
> 1. Two of the (original) campus2003 are getting married to each other.
> 2. He carries a fire breathing animal on his shoulder.
>
> Congratulations and God bless the young couple.
> HimS

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