Reduce Indirect taxes and increase the net Direct Taxes

We all know what are direct taxes, those which are collected directly by the government, from individuals and corporate, but what about indirect taxes? Those are taxes that are passed on to the consumer. That means even the poor citizen who buys a Rs. 5 packet of biscuits is paying taxes. I have thought about this often and I feel this is unfair. We must spare the poor in our country this tax. What is the benefit of this tax. I think such taxes should be very much minimized, or abolished all together. The reasons are

1. The very poor in our country should not be asked to pay this tax. Indirect taxes do not distinguish about paying capacity. If we should have indirect tax, the government should only tax the luxury goods and the addictive and harmful goods. Restaurant being taxed is ok, infact the fancier, upscale restaurants should be taxed more.

2. The other thought I have is around the absolute apathy of most of Indian citizens towards government property and its maintenance. I believe this is also in some way linked to our tax system. If the poor do not pay direct taxes, they assume that roads, drainages ect are free and they do not have to pay anything to get these. Hence they have a propensity to misuse these. They do not realize that they do pay a lot of taxes indirectly.

 Instead, I recommend that we reduce indirect taxes and increase the number of our citizens who have to pay direct taxes. It can be a very nominal amount, but all citizens above a certain threshold of income should  pay direct taxes. This will increase equity in our tax structure as well as make us a country of more responsible citizens.

Judging vs. Accepting

This has been a life long struggle for me. A tendency to unconsciously judge others. Put them into boxes. Lately it has become a conscious process. This resulted in my working on the same. I write this blog to share my learnings with others who may have the same challenge. What happens when we judge others? For me, the main realisation is that , one , of course they know that you are judging them and who wants to be judged? Judging others comes in the way of forming relationships and great friendships. Judging others comes in the way of genuinely enjoying others and helping others. But why do we judge? I have struggled with this answer, and I have come to the conclusion that we judge others because we judge ourselves. We judge ourselves against an ideal which we have formed in our minds, often created by society which includes our parents, teachers and other significant others. If we want to stop judging others we need to stop judging ourselves first and accept ourselves. This is most difficult but most liberating. This is what great leaders are about.

Experience Vs. other

Organizations are risking entry into tomorrow’s business arena using yesterday’s business thinking. Why else would most recruitment advertisements still mention ‘x number of years of experience’ as the number one  requirement? Have we even thought about the fact that the way business was run even 10 years ago is so dated today? And what is very new, hot and current today may not even exist 5 years from now? Then of what use is experience? It is now time to change the selection criteria. Today more emphasis needs to be on expertise, core knowledge, an understanding of the fundamentals in the area that a person chooses to work in. For an IT professional, it is not about the language, but a core understanding of technology, programming logic. Similarly for a pharma professional, it is more about a deep knowledge , understanding and appreciation of the science behind her work.  The other important ability is the ability to learn , the curiousity to know  and the willingness the fail. So will organisations now modify the selection criteria please and work a little bit harder to identify the right person for the job. Looking at numbers of years of experience is an easy way out !

Talent Development – One Size does not fit all

One of the most important elements in development of Talent is to identify the learning style of the individual. Some of us may learn best through class room teaching, some of us may like to learn at our own pace through online learning programs and books, some of us may learn through small group discussions with experts, some of us may learn through one on one coaching. Some of us may learn only  by doing and job rotations, small projects, job sharing, job shadowing may be the answer for such an individual. Once we identify this, we can have a more focused approach to development and optimize training dollars. Increasingly, talent development  in organisations has to be tailored and customized to meet individual requirements and this has to start with how we learn. ‘One Size fits all’ is wasteful and ineffective.