The purpose behind taxation.

I am forever surprised at how many people (which included me not long ago) cribbing about subsidies on Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter (which means that they have mobility, connectivity, and at least some basic education, as of course, access to Google and Bing) do not know what taxes are for.

They seem to find it personally offensive that ‘their’ taxes are used to subsidise stuff for those who cannot afford it, reduce inequality by redistributing wealth, increase opportunity and generate employment, provide basic services like transportation, communication, education, health, justice, and infrastructure for all, protect the citizens from threats and fraud, and maintain law & order, and not actually being used for the only legitimate purpose according to them: to better their lives exclusively, or at least in such major proportion as to make no difference to the small, unwashed public that they offer scraps as part of their noblesse oblige and brown sahib‘s burden.

These people, coming from families that have been educated and/or land-holding for generations behind them, urban living, financially literate and well-served by banks with easy availability of credit, income-tax paying, passport-owning, upper-middle-class (yes, this is one more pretend class they have manufactured with their ‘merit’, neither down there with the dirty rickshaw-wallahs and security guards, nor as vulgarly rich as film stars and startup boys), typically Savarnas (the self-confessed glorious ‘meritorious’), start off like this: ‘If only all Indians paid tax honestly, we’d not be a poor country.’ Or, ’I pay taxes but my locality roads are full of potholes while the government is merrily building highways and subsidising bus travel.’ Or, ‘Why should the government subsidise airports? If you are rich enough to travel by air, you should pay taxes’. Or, ‘I cannot get a grant to go for chaar-dhaam yatra with my own tax money, while the Haj is subsidised.’ Or, ‘How come these people never complain when paying for a Rs.300 pizza, but somehow feel the pinch of a mere 30 paisa increase in the price of their subsidised petrol?.’ Or some version of this.

The better-read amongst them then bring up the nuances and speak of how farmers do not pay income tax and how direct taxation is just over 50% of the GoI’s revenue and how almost 50% of that is from the 6% individuals who are direct taxpayers while the rest is from corporates. They always have anecdotes about rich farmers and tax-dodging chaat-wallahs, businessmen and bureaucrats who have ‘2-number ki kamai‘, and someone who owns a Mercedes (that, as per them, they don’t deserve) and educated Dalits (of which, they always have a friend or two to display their liberal credentials). Mota-mota aise hai ke they are convinced that they are a part of a fractional percentage of good, honest, law-abiding, taxpayers who have made it without any handouts or leg-ups subsidising all the other undeserving, dishonest, lying, thieving, low-caste, guttersnipes who deserve nothing that is good, but still believe themselves to be equal. If they want to be our equal, they proclaim, they should pay tax. Those who don’t pay tax don’t deserve the facilities the government provides using that tax money. And if they do get some, that is already too much and they should just stop whining and begging for more.

So, let us delve into tax and the origin of this practice, without getting into the etymology or the literal history of how, by whom, and when it was levied first, like I would normally do when writing on such a juicy topic. But, because the purpose of this post is not to baanto gyaan, but to raise consciousness and arouse some from sleep, at least those who aren’t pretending to sleep. And I am going to go about it in a point-wise format.

If you have not read anything till here, it is fine. This is where it gets interesting. So, read on.

You will agree that taxing the people, whether directly based on their income or indirectly based on what, where, and how they consume, or move from one end to the other of the country, or bring into the country’s borders, are all different ways of generating revenue for the purposes of those that are responsible for running the government of the said country.
That is an important sentence there: ‘the purposes of those that are responsible for running the government’. That means that the purpose of the people in power is what taxation serves. I hope this is clear till this point, and we all agree that this is true.
There are different types of governments, you will agree. There are dictatorships (of the military and non-military type) and monarchies, democracies of different hues (some with constitutional monarchies and some republics) and communists (once again, of different hues), oligarchies and theocracies, amongst many other forms that are some combination of the above or within a range that starts at one and ends at the other.
That means that the purpose of every government is different. Some exist solely to extract wealth from the nation and fill the coffers of the people on top (sometimes just one man), some are openly collectivist (while deviously being capitalist), some proclaim democratic ends but serve cronies of all kinds (from billionaires to generals), and some have declared egalitarian goals in the form of a constitution, at least in theory and prima facie. The purpose of taxation, as we agreed upon, is to serve the interests of these governments.
The next question we need to ask therefore is, what is the purpose of our government? That’s an excellent question and has been answered thoroughly and succinctly right at the start of our constitution that we have given ourselves 72 years ago. (Yes, the nitpickers will claim that the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ were added in 1976 under the Emergency, but let us also agree that we have had several governments, Congress and non-Congress, and several PMs, not all from the Nehru-Gandhi family, and no one has reversed that amendment, and I reckon no one would be foolish enough to try. Also, in Dr.Ambedkar’s words: “socialist principles are already embodied in our Constitution”). The point is that as of 25 August 2021, when I write this, the purpose of the Indian people, and thence the mandate of the government of their choice, as is wont in a democracy, is quite clear, to wit: to establish, maintain, and defend a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic as promised and to ensure that we all are entitled to and receive in full, justice (social, economic, and political), liberty (of thought, expression, belief, faith, and worship), and equality (of status and of opportunity), and to promote fraternity (assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity of the nation).
Can you see anywhere here the promise to treat a direct taxpayer better than an indirect one? Or a rich Brahmin man better than a poor Dalit woman? Or to provide you better roads even if it means increasing the price of cooking gas? Or to give favourable treatment to those who pay more tax? No, right? That’s because it isn’t there. It was left out on purpose. Or perhaps no one thought anyone would be silly enough to think thus. Whatever the reason, you can’t see it. It isn’t there. It is not meant to be.
Now, given that there is no dispute now as to what the purpose of our government (and therefore, the mandate offered to them by the people) is, should there be any more doubt in your mind as to what taxes are and what purpose they serve?
To repeat: Taxes are not fees you pay for premium lounge access. They are not a favour you are doing on anyone. They are your duty. They are not voluntary. And while how much is to be collected, when, and in what form, as well as what the democratically elected government does with it must be debated and voted on in Parliament (where your elected representative can question every paisa of income and expenditure), reported in the media, audited by the bureaucrats appointed for the purpose, and pass judicial tests of propriety, probity, and constitutionality, and while it is also your right to protest your neighbourhood road’s bad condition and demand that it be fixed, it is not your right to claim that your status as an income-tax payer gives you any special rights, privileges, or priorities over the welfare, interests, or constitutionally promised rights & freedoms of every other citizen, even if the said citizen has contributed less or no direct tax at all to the exchequer that year.
What the state owes you is not proportional to the income tax you pay. It never was. In any system. Except in Galt’s Gulch. And you are welcome to fuck off there if you think that’s where you belong. Indeed, you are welcome to fuck off if you think anything Ayn Rand wrote was either practical or moral.