Why do we pay taxes...

A question sometimes pops up in my mind and most of the times dies unanswered......are we out of the age of British Colonial Rule yet?

And something as common as the word Tax makes me all the more confused.....May be some one more aware of this social event, can throw some light on my ignorant soul. ...

We heard that under British rule we- the Indians paid taxes in terms of crops and so on. And then there was revolution against slavery. We watched movies like Lagaan and whistled in the theater to see some ordinary villagers' revolt against unfair means to collect Lagaan(taxes). But are we capable of such revolt in our lives today? Or the slavery has gone so deep inside our blood that we don't even realise what is fair!!!!!!!!!!!!

In India like in other countries we pay certain amount of tax on our earnings every financial year. Just in yesterday's news paper a read the column explaining how much a couple earning 25/20 Lakh p/a will pay in taxes post the 2010 budget. Guess what the figure comes to? Rs. 5,57,354 p/a. I'm not an expert to scrutinise every item that brings the this figure out. But my question is what do we get in return? ............... a sense of insecurity about our future? Headache over medical expenditure, a chest pain to hear our children's school fee, sleepless nights thinking about the EMIs to cover our heads, or shear panic to visit a local restaurant as some terrorist might wait there with a bomb?

Say for example, if a person working in an MNC like many do in modern India, earns 10 Lakhs/pa for 20 years of his life; he is paying 30% of his earnings in taxes i.e Rs 3 Lakhs/year, so in 20 years he is paying Rs 60 Lakhs in taxes alone, leave aside the hard work he has to do to obtain that figure out of his employer- doesn't he have the right to ask for free medical cover of Rs 10 Lakhs for his life, or Free education cover for his children for the same amount if anything happens to him, isn't it fair for him to ask for financial security from the Govt. post retirement or if he loses his job?Above all is it too much for him to ask for security against terror attack when a considerable amount of his earning is supposed to be spent on the country's defense? I understand if a govt employee like my parents are, doesn't revolt against taxes as he knows he will at least get pension when his hey days are over. But what about the rest???????

Paying Tax is inevitable in every country, without which no administration can be run....but in other countries, people know what they are paying for.....because they enjoy the value for their money in the name of social security, medical cover, free education and so on.

Is is the same in India as well? Isn't it time that we ask the question to ourselves and our leaders? We pay taxes but we hardly have decent roads to drive on.....we pay taxes but 10 young men enter our financial capital and kill hundreds when our defense is defenseless.....to top it all we clap to see an entire force killing a handful of terrorists after they have taken hundreds of innocent lives. Kudos to our tolerant spirit.... we pay taxes and every night have icy shivers rundown our spine fearing who will pay EMIs on home loan if we lose our job.....we pay taxes and we pay bag full of money just to provide for the basic education for our children.....we pay taxes and we pay to get entertained because we are not supposed to get rid of these burden even for a day......we pay taxes and we pay extra to ensure our 1st child is born under at least clean condition(hope some of you have been to the maternity ward of a Govt. hospital to understand what I mean)..............so we pay.....we pay.....and we pay..the list goes on.....but are we paid back in terms of basic amenities at least? Silence is the best answer I get......

However, we get to watch 200+ channels on T.V(for a cost though)....India is progressing........but is it a trick of the system to keep our minds engaged in trivial things like a dance reality show...so that we remain blind- folded against more serious issues of our society? Isn't it time to ask the question to ourselves before we can ask our country leaders no matter which political party they belong to? We have enough time to argue over the issue of whether a certain film should be screened or not whether a certain players should be allowed to come to our country or not....but alas we don't have enough time to argue over our rights to live our lives the way we deserve instead of just spending it the way we are forced to......long live Indian democracy.