Category Archives: Taxes

Where Your Taxes Go: 34

On a bigger statue for Mayawati. The Times of India reports from Lucknow:

A statue of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has been removed from a prominent location by the authorities here barely 45 days after she unveiled it, officials said. She wants a bigger statue of herself in its place.

[...]

Officials said Mayawati was not happy with the quality of the sculpture. She had also expressed her displeasure over the fact that it was smaller than the statue of her political mentor Kanshi Ram.

Now there’ll be anti-incumbency in the next election and Mulayam Singh Yadav will take over and want an even bigger statue than Mayawati’s, and then Mayawati will come back and want one size bigger, and so on until some low-cost airline’s airplane crashes into Mayawati’s nose and there are enquiries and Rajesh Talwar is blamed for that also. I love my India.

(Link via email from Ravikiran. Related posts on taxes in UP: 1, 2. For more on how our government loots us, check out my Taxes Archive.)

Where Your Taxes Go: 33

On foreign holidays for our esteemed judges. CNN-IBN reports:

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, KG Balakrishnan, wants judges to be kept out of the purview of the Right To Information (RTI) Act.

Now an RTI application put in by CNN-IBN has thrown up interesting details of how judges have extended their holidays, often for personal purposes, at Government expense.

Ironically, the urge to travel starts at the top. Balakrishnan, after taking over as Chief Justice, made at least seven trips abroad in 2007 traveling First Class with his wife with the air fare alone costing over Rs 39 lakh.

For instance, during his 11-day trip to Pretoria, South Africa in August 2007, the Chief Justice took the following route - Delhi, Dubai, Johannesburg, Nelspruit, Capetown, Johannesburg, Victoria Falls, where the judge finally didn’t go and returned via Dubai to Delhi.

Sure, a judge might need to make an official trip to study the judicial system of another country or something, but this is clearly tourist travel happening here, and according to the CNN-IBN reporter, there are “government rules that say judges cannot be accompanied by wives on work tours.” When the law minister HR Bhardwaj was asked about this, he replied:

How can you deprive the wife? You are a woman. You should understand.

I hereby demand that all Indian women be sent to South Africa for a holiday paid for by HR Bhardwaj out of his personal savings account. Thank you.

(Link via email from reader Shyam. For more on how our government loots us, check out my Taxes Archive.)

Where Your Taxes Go: 32

On celebrating a mutiny that took place 150 years ago. MSN reports:

India spent Rs 130 crore to celebrate its First War of Independence, 1857 revolt, without constructing a memorial for the martyrs or their directory.

A day after the government officially ended the year-long celebrations, a member of the National Implementation Committee (NIC) on 1857 revolt has termed most of the expenditure as “waste” on a “national tamasha”.

A tamasha it is, and an ironic one at that, for our government is closer in spirit to the British forces of 1857 than to the mutineers—this waste of our money, coercively taken from us, is a great example of that. Will we ever rise up against such theft?

Also read: The Republic of Apathy.

(Link via email from Rajeev Mantri. For more on how our government loots us, check out my Taxes Archive.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 12 May, 2008 in Economics | India | News | Old memes | Taxes

At Rs 26,000 a Minute…

... ‘Torture Hour’ costs Rs 15.6 lakhs.

That’s your money. And mine.

Posted by Amit Varma on 02 May, 2008 in India | News | Old memes | Taxes | Politics

Where Your Taxes Go: 31

In unnecessary gizmos for government bigwigs—especially ones that will keep them occupied during traffic jams. Mid Day reports that Mumbai’s mayor Shubha Raul recently threw a “tantrum” and demanded a laptop.

“Raul liked the additional municipal commissioner’s laptop and said she wanted one like it, but we gave her a better model,” said an IT officer. “It’s the best laptop in the BMC.”

Raul obviously is happy. “Who doesn’t want to get the best in the world? I am no exception. At least now, when I’m stuck in traffic jams, I can entertain myself with the laptop. I have never been tech savvy, but I will learn,” said Raul.

I don’t grudge our mayor a laptop, even if her post is largely ceremonial, but see the one she got. It’s a Toshiba Qosmio G40 costing Rs. 1.65 lakh. That’s like buying a Merc as an official car—it’s simply not necessary. I bought a beautiful Dell Inspiron 1525 a month ago for 45k, and it performs every function the mayor could possibly require—unless she’s editing films or creating special effects for Star Trek .

And see the woman’s gumption. Who doesn’t want to get the best in the world? she says. That’s my money you’re spending, Mrs Raul. Have some shame.

(Link via email from Amol Chavan. For more on how our government loots us, check out my Taxes Archive.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 23 April, 2008 in India | News | Old memes | Taxes | WTF

Where Your Taxes Go: 30

On painting Uttar Pradesh blue.

This is right out of Calvino, it is. Isn’t the sky enough for Mayawati?

(Link via email from Abhisek Pandey. For more on how our government loots us, check out my Taxes Archive.)

Where Your Taxes Go: 29

On 62 sandstone elephants in Lucknow. Their cost, according to CNN-IBN: Rs. 38 crore. They will be part of the Ambedkar Memorial, which, according to The Economic Times, is being built at “a whopping cost of Rs 7 billion.”

That’s Rs. 700 crore.

Yes, yes, I know that’s your money, and mine. But it’s not like we were planning to do anything useful with it. The nation needs an Ambedkar Memorial. And the memorial needs sandstone elephants. No?

(Link via email from Akshat Kaul. For more on how our government loots us, check out my Taxes Archive.)

Where Your Taxes Go: 28

DNA reports:

Taxpayer money running into several hundred crores is being splurged annually on the upkeep of bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi.

These bungalows, used by India’s political and bureaucratic leadership, are white elephants in terms of running costs, thanks to their elaborate colonial style construction, huge lawns and staggering security paraphernalia.

[...]

The residences of the Gandhi family — Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka — saw a spend of nearly Rs47 lakh collectively during these three years.

I don’t have an issue with senior functionaries in the government getting perks with their jobs, but why on earth should the taxes you and I pay go towards Priyanka Gandhi’s plumbing and electricity expenses? Truly, the Gandhis are a royal family. I suppose I should just be glad that we live in the 21st century, or they’d have me hanged, drawn and quartered for my audacity in questioning their entitlements.

For more on how our government loots us, check out my Taxes Archive.

Where Your Taxes Go: 27

Towards establishing a professorship in Jawaharlal Nehru’s name in Cambridge.

I rather like R Vaidyanathan’s comment on the matter:

It is also ironical that the professorship is for business studies, while Nehru was the architect of the licence permit quota Raj in India. It is like the butchers’ association of Texas providing a chair to study Gandhian thought in some US university.

The butcher’s association, of course, would presumably do so with its own money. The Nehru Professorship is paid for by money taken forcibly from us. Such it goes…

(Link via email from Rajeev Mantri. For more on how our government loots us, check out my Taxes Archive.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 14 February, 2008 in India | Old memes | Taxes | Politics | WTF

Avoiding Double Payment

Headline of the day:

Company seeks tax exemption for bribes

You can’t deny there’s a certain logic to it.

(Link via email from Shrek.)

Update: Hmm…

Posted by Amit Varma on 13 February, 2008 in Economics | News | Old memes | Taxes | Politics

Meanwhile, in Britain…

... the Labour government is using tax-breaks to incentivize polygamy. Heh.

Posted by Amit Varma on 05 February, 2008 in Economics | News | Old memes | Taxes | WTF

On Earmarks and Taxes

Don Boudreaux writes another great letter.

Posted by Amit Varma on 05 February, 2008 in Economics | Old memes | Taxes | Politics

Long, Healthy Lives…

... are hazardous to the taxpayer, reports IBNLive.com. A study has found that “the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers,” and “healthy people live longer and may develop long-term diseases in old age like Alzheimer’s which are very expensive to treat.”

The solution here is not to prevent people from living long and healthy lives. Instead, it is to question what our governments do with the money it coerces out of its citizens. Is it fair to take money from the obese to pay the medical costs of the relatively healthy, as is effectively the case here? Would it be fair the other way around? Is the government taxing us to provide certain basic services like law and order, or to redistribute it according to the interests of a few politicians in power?

I hope to live a long and healthy life— and even if I don’t, to be a burden on nobody. Is that unusual?

(Link via email from Andy.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 05 February, 2008 in Economics | Old memes | Taxes | Small thoughts

Where Your Taxes Go: 26

IANS reports:

Rising hemlines saw temperatures going up in the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Tuesday with an actress’ short dress triggering a demand from the PMK for a law imposing a dress code and the ruling DMK counselling its ally that it should exercise restraint.

While the DMK advised the PMK that restraint, not the length of a skirt, was the solution, M K Kanimozhi, daughter of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and MP, was attacking the ‘hypocrisy’ of imposing a dress code on female actors elsewhere in the city.

The fundamental problem here is that our governments want to rule us, not serve us. And that negates the purpose of parting us from the taxes we pay. No?

(Link via email from Karthik. For more on what happens to our taxes, click here.)

A Fee For Patriotism?

Headline of the day:

Don’t pay us to be patriotic: Muslims to UPA

It seems that the central government “has proposed to offer additional grants to nearly all the 12,000 madrassas, which get Government funds, to celebrate national festivals namely Independence Day and Republic Day.”

If politicians wish to bribe or pander, they are welcome to do with their own money. But why on earth should you or I have to pay for it? Immense disgust comes.

(Link via email from Vikram Chandrashekar.)

Nadiraji Wants Your Money

This is the 44th installment of my weekly column for Mint, Thinking it Through.

A few days ago, the respected theatre artist Nadira Babbar spoke to the newspaper DNA about the state of theatre in Mumbai. She felt that there weren’t enough good auditoriums in the city. “My appeal to the government is to build small, simple auditoriums with basic infrastructure,” she said. “I am seriously thinking of meeting the chief minister and put before him certain stark realities of the state of theatre. Some of my proposals are to subsidize the rates of the halls. Secondly, it would be of great help if they subsidize the rates of placing advertisements in newspapers; not only for the theatre events, but also for other cultural events.”

Most of us would sympathize with her. The arts are essential to a civilized society, and deserve our support. And there are many neglected areas of it, besides theatre, where an infusion of funds would help. Traditional folk arts are dying out, literature in regional languages gets a raw deal, and so on. So, naturally, many of us turn to the state.

But should we?

Should Entrepreneurial Geniuses Pay a Higher Tax Rate?

If so, so should tall men, argues a new study by Greg Mankiw and Matthew Weinzierl.

No, they’re not being facetious. The abstract of the paper states:

Should the income tax system include a tax credit for short taxpayers and a tax surcharge for tall ones? This paper shows that the standard utilitarian framework for tax policy analysis answers this question in the affirmative. This result has two possible interpretations. One interpretation is that individual attributes correlated with wages, such as height, should be considered more widely for determining tax liabilities.

Alternatively, if policies such as a tax on height are rejected, then the standard utilitarian framework must in some way fail to capture our intuitive notions of distributive justice.

You can download the paper here (pdf link).

(NY Times link via email from Ravi Venkatesh.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 12 December, 2007 in Economics | Old memes | Taxes

Listen To Our Honourable MPs

Check out this entertaining excerpt of a recent question hour at the Rajya Sabha. My favourite bit comes at the end:

Mr Chairman: The Question Hour is over.

Dr V Maitreyan: Sir, it is very unfortunate that you are giving opportunity to ask questions only...(Interruptions). I am raising my hand for half an hour. This is very unfair. I want to protest against this. Only Members from Congress and BJP do not exist in this House. From tomorrow, I will disrupt the Question Hour...(Interruptions).

Apropos of nothing, I remember school.

(Link via Prem Panicker, who points out that “this is what is costing all us taxpayers Rs 26,000 per minute.” My happiness knows no bounds.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 23 November, 2007 in India | Old memes | Taxes | Politics

Should Government Subsidize the Arts?

Here’s Frédéric Bastiat on the subject:

Does the right of the legislator extend to abridging the wages of the artisan, for the sake of adding to the profits of the artist?

And to extend that question, what causes justify abridging the wages of the artisan?

(The quote was from Bastiat’s great essay, That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen. Read the full thing!)

Where Your Taxes Go: 25

The Indian cricket team.

Yes, the Maharashtra government is giving Rs10 Lakh each to Ajit Agarkar and Rohit Sharma, and the Delhi government is handing out Rs5 lakh each to Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. This is disgraceful. If Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sheila Dikshit wish to use India’s victory to make a statement, they should spend their own money. All poor people in this country, from maids to chaprasis to cycle-rickshaw drivers, pay taxes every time they buy anything. It is ludicrous that their hard-earned money, coercively collected by the state, should be spent on cricketers with endorsements that are worth crores.

(Link via email from Jitendra Mohan. Where your taxes go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. Also see: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

My essays on taxes and government: Your maid funds Unani, A beast called government, A Business Proposal.)

Update: Speaking of endorsements…

(Link via reader Surendra.)

Where Your Taxes Go: 24

A second Silicon Valley in the US.

Here’s the gist of it: A few IT companies are getting together with the government to set up incubation centers for entrepreneurs in New Jersey and Chicago. The government is going to pay half the setup costs, and it will also “bear the operational cost of the facilities for a period of three years.”

This is a great initiative for the private sector to take up. But there is no reason why my maid’s taxes should go into this.

(Link via email from Jayakamal Balasubramani. Where your taxes go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. Also see: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

My essays on taxes and government: Your maid funds Unani, A beast called government, A Business Proposal.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 25 September, 2007 in Economics | India | Old memes | Taxes

Where Your Taxes Go: 23

Mango exports.

If the US government has regulations that demand irradiation of mangoes, and inspectors, and suchlike, I don’t see why you and I should foot the bill. Surely the exporters should. Why on earth are we funding mango exporters with our hard-earned money?

(Link via email from Nitin Pai. Where your taxes go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Also see: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

My essays on taxes and government: Your maid funds Unani, A beast called government, A Business Proposal.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 17 September, 2007 in Economics | India | Old memes | Taxes

The Republic of Apathy

This essay of mine was published today in the Independence Day special issue of Lounge, the weekend edition of Mint, as “Those Songs of Freedom.”

Just thinking of it sends a chill up my spine. On 12 March 1930, at the Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat, 79 men went for a walk. For 23 days they marched, covering four districts, 48 villages, 400 kilometres. On the way they picked up thousands of other ordinary people, animated by a cause so much bigger than themselves. Then, on 6 April, by the sea at the coastal village of Dandi, Mahatma Gandhi picked up a handful of salty earth and said, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.”

The empire shook. The purpose of Gandhi’s march was to protest the oppressive and unfair salt tax, and across the country people joined the battle. They made their own salt. They bought illegal salt. That year, 60,000 Indians were arrested during these protests. The Salt Law was not repealed. And yet, “the first stage in ... the final struggle of freedom,” as Gandhi described it, had made an impact.

More than 77 years have passed. We have been free of the British empire for 60 of them. If we were to get inside a time machine, go back to 1930, pull in some of the men and women who marched to Dandi, and bring them to this present time, how would they react? Would they think that they were finally in the India that they had fought to achieve?

Or would they set off on another walk?

Where Your Taxes Go: 22

Sponsoring second honeymoons for people who delay having a child.

So the next time you file your returns, don’t be grouchy. At least someone’s having fun.

(Link via email from Andy. Where your taxes go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Also see: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

My essays on taxes and government: Your maid funds Unani, A beast called government.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 09 August, 2007 in Economics | India | Old memes | Taxes

Licensed to toast

This is the 22nd installment of my weekly column for Mint, Thinking it Through.

“You may now need licence to own toaster,” read the headline of a news report this Tuesday in the Hindustan Times. The article began: “You do not use the Toast Authority of India’s toasting services, but may soon have to pay a one-time licence fee for the toaster you own and an additional tax on any new toaster you buy in the future. Why? To support the Toast Authority of India and its employees.”

“Wait a minute,” you tell me, “you’re pulling a fast one on us. This is way too absurd to believe. Our gentle, compassionate government would never do something like that.”

Right. Well, I did make some of that up. The headline actually said, “You may now need license to own TV.” And in the para I quoted, replace “TAI’s toasting services” with Doordarshan, “toaster” with “TV” and “TAI” with “Prasar Bharati”, and there you have it.

Now tell me, is that any less absurd?

Where your taxes almost went

Towards paying 700 staffers at the Hardayal Municipal Library in Chandni Chowk.

The Indian Express reports:

For the past few months, the Hardayal Municipal Library in Chandni Chowk has been witnessing a heavy rush of people — more than 700 — every day. Unfortunately, they are not readers but library staffers, all hired in a span of four months, ahead of the municipal elections earlier this year.

These employees, mainly college students, were hired by former Congress councillor Ashok Jain between December 2006 and March 2007. The library, Delhi’s oldest, is fully functional with 15 staffers. The remaining 700 spend their day protesting against the MCD for non-payment of salaries since April.

My favourite part of the story is when the current councillor tells IE, “[O]ur readers find no place to sit now.” That so typifies the essence of government.

(Link via email from Confused. Where your taxes go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Also see: 1, 2, 3, 4.

My essays on taxes and government: Your maid funds Unani, A beast called government.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 29 June, 2007 in India | Old memes | Taxes

Where America’s taxes go

Nandz writes in to point me to an excellent graphic representation of where America’s taxes go. He wonders if I could do one for India.

Well, I’d actually once contemplated building a “Where Your Taxes Go” calculator, where you could feed in the amount you pay as tax, and get an itemized breakup of where that money is spent. It would be personal and easy to relate to, and would illustrate beautifully the extent to which our taxes are wasted. Sadly, I don’t think there is enough public data to be able to do this accurately. If you think otherwise, and believe that it can be built, feel free to write to me.

(Where your taxes go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. Also see: 1, 2, 3.

My essays on taxes and government: Your maid funds Unani, A beast called government.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 12 June, 2007 in Economics | India | Old memes | Taxes

Where your taxes go: 21

Building malls.

You have to wonder what we have learned in the last 60 years. The BMC is reportedly planning to “construct ‘municipal malls’ at various spots in the city,” where “prices of commodities would be regulated ... so that they could ‘cater to the masses’.” Mumbai Mirror rightly lashes out:

All this focus on a ‘business enterprise’ comes at a time when hundreds of roads across the city are still dug up, a large part of the Mithi river is yet to be cleaned up though the monsoon is already here, the city’s massive parking problems need urgent solutions, the Jijamata Udyan needs a thorough clean-up, octroi evasion is depriving the BMC of crores of rupees, the question of adequate and 24/7 water supply is still to be resolved, most BMC schools are on the verge of closure, and Mumbaikars on the whole want the city’s crumbling civic services to be improved.

The populist rhetoric accompanying the proposal is startlingly naive. These malls, a ‘civic official’ is quoted as saying, will “accommodate small shops that have been forced to shut because of big malls and also the BMC’s development projects.” The BMC should ask itself a few basic questions: If some small shops have shut down because of big malls, why is that so? When they don’t regulate prices outside those malls (with good reason!), how will regulating them inside the malls help? If those shops could function at a price lower than the market, wouldn’t they have destroyed the big malls, instead of the other way around? Isn’t the whole point of a market to satisfy the needs of the consumer, and is there any point accommodating stores inside government malls that the consumers have rejected outside them?

My prediction: If any such malls come up, they will become vehicles of enrichment for rent-seeking officials. Space within the malls will be allocated to merchants at the discretion of municipal officials, and corruption will be rampant. These malls will not turn a profit. You and I, again, will end up as shmucks. And the roads will still have potholes.

(Where your taxes go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Also see: 1, 2, 3.

My essays on taxes and government: Your maid funds Unani, A beast called government.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 06 June, 2007 in Economics | India | Old memes | Taxes | Politics

Where your taxes go: 20

Spending thousands to deny Rs 2:

The Department of Posts is prepared to spend thousands of rupees on expensive litigation in the High Court to prevent a 75-year-old pensioner from getting an additional benefit of Rs 2 as part of his pension.

Sigh. And how ironic that every time this gentleman buys something, he is contributing to the thousands of rupees spent to deny him his Rs 2. Such it goes.

(Link via email from Kunal.

Where your taxes go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. Also see: 1, 2, 3.

My essays on taxes and government: Your maid funds Unani, A beast called government.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 23 April, 2007 in Economics | Freedom | India | Old memes | Taxes

Where your taxes go: 19

Subsidies for pilgrimages. The Times of India reports:

In its determination to protect Haj subsidies, particularly in view of the ongoing elections in UP, Centre has told Supreme Court that it was ready to offer similar support, at state expense, to pilgrimages organised by other communities.

Positing its offer as being in sync with the “secular ideals” of the Constitution, Centre virtually made a policy announcement by agreeing to provide financial assistance to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains and other religious communities.

This is not secularism. To me, secularism has two implications:

1 A complete separation of state and religion.

2. Every person in this country having the right to follow a religion of their choice, as long as they don’t impose it on others.

The right to follow a religion of your choice, of course, is completely different from a right to having your religion sponsored by other people’s money, which is nothing short of theft. Do remember, after all, that “state expense” comes from my pockets and your bank account and suchlike. Money does not fall from the skies, and even if the government actually printed money to afford these subsidies, inflation would result, which is an indirect form of taxation.

If Sonia Gandhi or Manmohan Singh genuinely believe that pilgrimages deserve to be funded, I recommend that they shell out their own money for the purpose. There is no justification for taking away our hard-earned money and spending it on building votebanks for themselves.

(Link via SMS from little n.

Where your taxes go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. Also see: 1, 2, 3.

My essays on taxes and government: Your maid funds Unani, A beast called government.)

Where your taxes go: 18

Advertising campaigns for governments.

It’s quite possible that Amitabh Bachchan did the ads for UP for free, but my contention is that the government shouldn’t be wasting our tax money in producing and broadcasting advertisements for itself.

(Update: Reader Hemant brings my attention, via his comment below, to an Amitabh quote in the article in which he says that the ads were funded by the SP. If so, then this is clearly a wrong example, as your taxes may not be involved in this particular case. My bad, sorry! My larger point about government advertising, though, remains.)

A government should not need to advertise, its efficiency or inefficiency will be evident to all the people it governs. By all means, let a political party advertise its achievements with its own money, but to spend taxpayers’ money on it is a waste.

(Where your taxes go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Also see: 1, 2, 3.

My essays on taxes and government: Your maid funds Unani, A beast called government.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 20 March, 2007 in India | Old memes | Taxes | Politics

Your maid funds Unani

This is the latest installment of my column for Mint, Thinking It Through. It is an elaboration of my concerns behind my ongoing series, Where Your Taxes Go, and I’d like to thank all the readers and bloggers who have sent me links for that. Keep them coming, and keep expressing your outrage on your own blogs as well.

These are good times for Unani. In his latest budget, the honourable P Chidambaram allocated Rs. 563.88 crores for the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy. I kid you not, I am not making this up for your satirical amusement. That departments exists. And you work your ass off, and make sacrifices, so that it can be funded. You and your maidservant.

On my blog, I have a section called “Where Your Taxes Go,” where I document strange instances of how our taxes are put to use. There is much there that is trivial and amusing—a moustache allowance for a havaldar in Lucknow, compensation for a bank employee mistakenly declared dead, salary for an 11-year-old teacher, relocation of monkeys from New Delhi to MP (only Rs. 25 lakhs). There is also much there that underscores the irresponsibility of our politicians—toilet refurbishment allowances for Jharkhand legislators, parliament hold-ups that cost 20k a minute, the 90 lakh free TVs that the DMK promised in Tamil Nadu to get elected there. Most of us are so used to government wastage that we shrug this off. “Pata hai yaar,” we say together in a gruff chorus of a billion nonchalant voices. “So what is new? Gorment is like this only.”