Let corporate leaders have a say in how taxpayer money is spent
There can be no argument that the misuse of the taxpayer's money by the government must stop. The budgeted expenditure of the Centre for 2013-14 is over Rs 16 lakh crore. Even a 10% reduction in this amount would mean a saving of Rs 1.6 lakh crore, a sum almost equal to the entire estimated income tax revenue for the year. However, instead of taking steps in that direction, finance ministers find it easier to increase the burden on the taxpaper. In his budget speech on February 28, 2013, finance minister P Chidambaram announced a 10% surcharge on those with taxable income exceeding Rs 1 crore. He also announced that the surcharge on domestic companies would go up to 10% from 5% where the total income exceeds Rs 10 crore. As a means of raising resources, such measures makes little economic sense. The experience of the last two decades and more has shown that moderate tax rates encourage tax compliance and actually boost revenues.
A far better way of balancing the fisc would be to cut down on wasteful expenditure. As things stand, the government is accountable only to Parliament on how taxpayer money is spent. In other words, the political class has a monopoly on determining how this money is spent. Common sense tells us that the instincts of the political class will be to spend money on what they perceive to be most populist, not on what makes most sense in economic terms. What we need, therefore, is a mechanism to act as a check on these populist instincts. We suggest that the best way of doing so is to constitute committees of eminent and credible corporate leaders representing various sectors of the economy to advise the government on expenditure. These are people who have a wealth of experience in managing large sums of money and who are not constrained by the need to ‘buy’ votes.
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