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Back to tax basics

14 6
tuesday

No matter how simple taxation laws are enacted in the beginning but they tend to turn into a cobweb of complexities over a period of time leading to legal, procedural complications and distortions. There is no denying the fact that amendments and adjustments have to be made to accommodate emerging business realities and interpretations made and precedents set by the constitutional courts.

But many legal distortions were arisen when tax amnesty schemes were introduced and space was created to accommodate various tax exemption/rate reduction schemes and tax credit initiatives on investments in sectors of real estate, new industrial undertakings, educational and welfare activities and Non-Profit Organizations.

Moreover, separate frameworks have also been created for specialized industries such as banking, petroleum, and green industrial undertakings.

The high-end industries relating to digital transactions, e-commerce and startups also required a separate taxation framework catering to the needs and nature of their specific business activities. Ideally, a taxation architecture should be built on the fundamental principles of equity, consistency, convenience and economy. However, the impact of all different shades of business enterprises pushed the doctrine of simplification and convenience to the back seat.

The prevalent tax structure is so complex that the same is beyond comprehension of an average taxpayer. Income Tax assessments have been classified as Normal tax regime (NTR), Final tax regime (FTR), Minimum tax framework (MTR).

The first tax assessment classification is fair enough as the same is a standard taxation framework, which is aligned with the fundamental principles of taxation as well as fits well with economics principles to the effect that all income........

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