Taxes hold a paradox: paying them breeds resentment toward system; evading them makes system resent you. There is no escape.

Ancient Egypt (3000 BCE) pioneered taxation with Corvée (free labour for public works) and Tithe (in-kind payments). Taxation remained unfair and excessive until Adam Smith (1776) laid foundation of modern tax system, aiming to balance revenue generation, state expenditure and public good without crushing people, but offering little relief to British colonial subjects.

Ask citizens if they want to pay their fair share of taxes, and you'll hear both yes and no. They resent rising taxes as revenues vanish into debt servicing, tax corruption, bloated governance, wasteful spending and policy flops. Besides, subsidising vested interests and absorbing SOEs' losses reached Rs750 billion in FY25 (past decade losses hitting Rs6.5 trillion). Rehabilitation is futile — those responsible can't fix it. Privatisation keeps failing; nobody sane buys entities losing Rs2.33 billion daily. Unviable, better shut them down, pay settlement and save trillions of tax rupees — unless it serves someone's interests.

SOEs are not alone in bleeding public funds — power sector is another vast drain, with Rs380 billion in losses and circular debt nearing Rs2,800 billion in FY25. Instead of tackling these nightmares, MoE erects a smokescreen, blames solar users for Rs159 billion grid burden, ignoring power losses double that amount, and snubbing fact of forex savings on furnace oil and LNG imports. This misleads public and contradicts climate change policy, and reflects an important ministry in disarray, squandering tax rupees.

Every government trots out mantra "people........

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