Just voting won’t help. I told you so.

So finally the election results are out. Congress has turned out to the largest party and will form the government. So let us see that with all the advertising and marketing campaigns (lead India, Pappu, Jagore) to motivate and convince the voter, what is has finally done for you and me, the citizen of this country. Will it bring about the change that we wanted or the change you wanted.

You will find that the same government with more or less the same ministers will form the government. So you will get more of the same. Same corruption. Same law and order situation. Same water and electricity situation. Same infrastructure. People in Delhi will continue to be killed by Blue Lines Busses. The bus corridor will not be eliminated as per people’s wishes but will be expanded making our life more miserable.

So what has changed after your vote? One thing certainly has changed. I am most happy that Prakash Karat will disappear. Stable government is certainly very good news in todays economic scenario. Stability will bring back confidence in the economy.

Now the business world is very happy that Congress will be in a position to what it wants to do without the pressure of allies like the Communist Party. But what were the issues that the Communist Party was restricting the Congress to act. They were mostly issue which do not directly affect us. Some of the issues that Congress wanted to implement were increasing FDI limits and the Nuclear Pact with US which Communist Party was against. Now Nuclear Agreement was a done deal. As far as FDI limits are concerned, they are not such a big issue for you and me but they are certainly big for the big time industrialists who expect to gain by selling stakes in their companies. Will there be anything for you and me, the common citizen of this country, I am not sure.

Some of you might be thinking, what does this guy want? How does he want the citizen of this country to be treated? Well, let me give you an example. On the 12/5/2009, I received a notice from one of the tax departments that by 15/5/2009, I should visit the tax department’s office with documents etc. to meet the Asst. Commissioner as we had not responded to their notice dated 15/12/2005 (please concentrate on the dates if you want to understand what citizens of this country have to go through). The notice also stated that if we didn’t appear before the Asst. Commissioner, ex-parte action will be taken. Even though, I say it it myself but we respond to every notice and we keep our records as straight as possible. I was sure that I must have responded to their notice but didn’t have the time to check old files. In order to avoid any penalty in these days of financial stress and strain, I landed up at the tax department’s office and find that:

(a) The Asst. Commissioner is missing.
(b) There are a number of people who have been given the same notice.
(c) Since the Asst. Commissioner was missing, the department was just handing out copies of the notice dated 15/12/2009 to the people who had come.
(d) Now I must also tell you that how the notice was being given. Once you presented the notice to the official, your file was asked for and the notice was identified. Then the peon was asked to photocopy the same. All this while, we had to wait.

When I was given the notice, I found that the notice pertained to the tax returns pertaining to period April 2002 to March 2004 and it stated that we had not filed returns for this period. For a moment, I was shocked and worried because finding old papers is always a hassle and if we cannot produce all the documents, we will have to unnecessarily pay huge fines. Also, I was also sure that if I had received the notice, I would have certainly replied to the same.

After reaching office, the first thing that I did was dug old files. It took me a couple of hours but finally I was able to trace the following documents:

(a) The orignal notice dated 15/12/2005.
(b) Our response dated 24/1/2009 which was received bythe tax department on 3/2/2006.
(c) I also found that some of the returns for this period were submitted late by us resulting in our ultimately paying penalty for late filing. I found 3 assessment orders for the penalty that we had to pay.

Now my questions are as follows:

(a) Why was sent a notice and I ended up wasting my time?
(b) Why was the Asst. Commissioner or an alternate person not available to discuss the case as that is what the notice said?
(c) Why was the copy of the notice not sent along with the latest notice? Were we called just to collect the notice?
(d) What was the department doing for since 2005? Why didn’t it take immediate action against people who had not filed returns or responded to the notice?
(e) Is this a scheme to collect money from the tax payers and harras them? I think it is. I have found that the government department never tells you immediately that you have done something wrong. They wait so that you end paying more fine than what you should.

I believe that the tax department should be pulled up for wasting the time of the tax payers. The Asst. Commissioner should be warned that if he/she has called the tax payer by sending a notice, somebody with appropriate should be there to address the issues. The tax department should also be pulled up for not doing their job for almost 4-5 years. Why was the matter not resolved earlier. Every year notice should be sent to people who have not filed their returns or paid taxes and the matter should be resolved in a couple of months and not years.

Now will the Congress Party address this issue? I doubt it. So your and my problems will remain where they are. So whether I vote or do not vote, the problem of the citizens remain.

Avinash Narula