Income Tax - FY & AY

Food for thought on 05-Oct-2017: 

Income Tax Financial Year: Sometimes during 2004-05, I was thinking of some improvements in the IT rules. The first thing that came to me mind was the Financial Year (FY)- which is different than the Calendar Year. Now why don’t we make the FY coincide with the Calendar year, i.e., from 1-Jan to 31-Dec. After 12 years or so the GoI has woken up to this idea and may implement it in 2019. This will simplify many clumsy notations, statements, computer memory space etc. The latest news says that the Govt has put off this to the next year- 2019.

Road Accidents

Stimulation for Faculty of Thinking on 30-Sep-2017: 

Road accidents are one of the biggest losses to human lives. The Govt tackles this by making wearing of Helmets (for two-wheelers)and using Seat Belts (for four-wheelers). Have you ever thought or noticed that these actions CANNOT prevent accidents to happen. Well, they can ONLY help in reducing the injury, damage or loss to life in case there is a mishap. Then why they are enforced? It’s because it’s easy to administer, and the helmet/seat-belt industries are the big beneficiaries. For prevention of accidents, we have several other options, which are never implemented seriously.

The most important action is the strict enforcement of road rules, like overloading, wrong direction, speed limits, etc. The design of roads and turns, etc. is also faulty; they deliberately / inadvertently encourage breaking of road rules. Most of us invariably compare our system with that of USA. If things work nicely there why can’t it here? We have to understand the difference there: very strict implementation by the authority, people are law abiding and willing to comply, moreover the drivers are trained and tested rigorously and then certified (The licensing process). Here, we have none of these in practice and in addition, one can get away with ease when caught.

Taxi Aggregators

Food for Thought for 20-Sep-2017:

In 2003, while working on various Projects, the concept of Radio/Mobile Taxi came to my mind which is very close to the latest concept of “Taxi Aggregators” less the App. I envisaged it with communication through the mobile/cell phone network. Later over the years, when GPS, and faster Internet were ready for use by the mobile Apps, the concept was fine-tuned to the present state.

Consolidation of Service Providers

Ever Thought or Noticed for 14-Sep-2017:

Have you ever noticed that there are about 50 Banks, 44 Mutual Fund AMCs, and 29 Life/ General Insurance Companies in India. Anyone having Rs. 1 Billion (100 Crores) can open a Life Insurance Company, or Rs. 5 Billion (500 Crores) can open a Bank, albeit with Govt permission. Do they all make profits, or provide value for the people? The answer is a big NO!

During the writing of my article (Administrative Reforms in India) in 2007, I mooted the idea of consolidation of these financial entities to clear clutter, improve efficiency and profits for them. The Govt has just woken up last year and started doing that with the Banks starting with SBI. Till 2015 they were granting new Banks, new AMCs etc. Ideally, we should have only 6-8 Insurance companies, 8-12 Banks and 12-16 AMCs for a healthy competition. On the other hand if we see the Telecom service providers, the competition has cut their number to size about 6, which is good enough.