Don't dig a hole in my pocket!

Just read this news report on Aziz Premji suggesting that professional tax be raised for the techies. This is so that the proposed tax on IT products and services can be brought down and that share of money can be taxed on the techies.

I don’t know what to make out of this, but, essentially Mr. Premji is crying out loud, "Don't dig a hole in my pocket, pick the other guy". How convenient? Thanks Mr. Premji, but no, thanks!

Just makes me wonder, how proud the Wipro folks would be to hear their boss speak for them and not to mention the encouragement they must have got from this statement. Of course, Mr. Premji can always put a straight face to it, saying he will be taxed too. Taxed on what, your salary? Well I am no expert on this, but for most head of companies and CEO's, salary is just a small portion on the money they make. Not to mention the size of the salaries. It’s a mute argument.

I also think Mr. Premji never expected this to come out in the open, knowing, he himself leads a company of techies. This was just supposed to be a whisper to the politicians (may be on behalf of the industry, who knows?), which obviously now is out in the open and since then he seems to be shying away from it saying, "No comments".

Anyway here's some alternative suggestions:

• Tax the CEO's since they get paid more than "handsome salaries" anyway (no pun intended)
  
• Bring down the prices of IT products and services (specially the consumer IT products, since I believe corporations will spend on IT anyway, if they have to), so the consumption for these products doesn’t take a hit taking into account the proposed hike by the government. This may mean CEO's and the heads of companies take less commissions, bonuses etc.

After all, why not tax those who can afford to pay the tax?

Another fact worth mentioning is that the high salaries of techies are partially responsible for the boom in consumption we have seen in the past few years. Most of the techies are in their 20's and 30's and they are the ones who are stepping out and spending their money. Picking on them for some special tax doesn’t seem like a good idea, after all.

My two cents :)

Disclaimer: Techy and a former "tax payer in India".