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.