Why pay tax ?

I'm compelled to write this because of the tax evading attitude is in the air there days. People don't want to pay taxes, and want to get maximum exemption, even by illegitimate means. Some common logic/excuses -

1. Its my (hard earned) money. Why should I give it to anyone ?

2. Everything I buy is taxed. I am already paying a lot.

3. Don't want my money to go into some corrupt politician's pocket. 

4. Are you stupid? Everybody does it.

My answers to these -

Answer 1. Freedom is not free. The entire setup of armed forces and security personnel/agencies, for protecting our freedom, is financed by public funds. Moreover,  if you have ever been benefitted by governement facilities like public hospitals (AIIMS is one, for eg), government colleges (IITs, IIMs etc), infrastructure (roads, bridges etc), you must know that all these are either fully free or heaviliy subsidized. Even the petrol in our cars is subsidized. Tax is the price we pay for all this.

Answer 2. That calls for a very tough calculation. Add up the value of all the public services, facilities and subsidies you ever recieved. Add up all the tax you ever paid. See which one weighs more. I can bet we get more than we ever paid.

Answer 3. That is a really genuine concern. But is tax evasion a solution? Let us see. Suppose we all decide not to pay taxes and able somehow able to bring down the tax collection figures significantly. Does it really affect the crooked politician ? No really. Even if the cash flow coming from the government funds dries out, being powerful, rich and evil, he has many more ways of upkeeping his earnings, many of them criminal too. Who suffers then? 

Many. But few very direct examples I can quote are -

First - the lower-middle level government employees with their salaries stopped/suspended (that actually happens in UP and Bihar). These are the people (health workers, primary school teachers etc) who actually bring governance/welfare to people.

Second -Pensioners - pensions irregular or stopped. These are elderly people or widows of govt. employees. This includes ex-armymen and widows of soldiers who die fighting to protect us.

Third -the (below) average Indian. Remember the average Indian earns Rs 30-40K per annum. He is desperatly dependant on the government for healthcare, education, ration, employment, credit etc. Is it ok to deprive him even of the 10% (sadly enough) of the govt. expenditure that reaches him?

  

Answer 4. I can't answer that. Not right now. 

More Comments:

1. Tax exemptions (at least most of them) should go. There is no good reason I should be exempted for my conveyance expense, while most of my countrymen struggle to buy a bicycle. Neither should real-estate industry be given an unfair advantage by exempting their customers. There are many more provisions, most them just serving as tax-evasion-enablers. The only ones that look okay are exemption on charity, education loans and retirals.

2. Tax structure should be further simplified. Straightforward tax slabs, so nobody needs experts to understand it all. Less tax for low earners, more for the wealthy, and even more for the even more wealthy. For eg, 10 lacs pa falls in 30% slab, and 10 crore pa too - clearly unfair.