
India's super-rich peak tax rate, at 42.7%, now higher than USA - superasn
https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/personal-finance/budget-2019-india-income-tax-peak-super-rich-tax-4174261.html
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gingabriska
Indian taxation is mystery to me, traveling through the India I realized it's
the middle class (employees at a company) who pay maximum taxes but receive
little to no benefits.

While villagers got free solar panels, funds for constructing bathroom, homes
etc....some even got money during floods even when their place wasn't much
affected.

And super rich have armies of lawyers and accountants ready to forge battle
and use techniques to minimize their tax.

I felt bad for the middle class who in my opinion worked really long crushing
hours and often stayed far away from families.

The kind of food/products army receives only upper middle class can afford
them with their own money. And army even sells some of that subsided food to
local people in return of cash.

I don't understand how can middle-class keep their heads down and simply pay
whatever they are asked to pay?

Needless to say, many want to move to freer countries with less import duties,
less taxation and more employment opportunities and better market.

Unless you are super rich, good luck buying Lamborghini in India. India is not
a country where you can really enjoy fruit of your labor.

Every Government will come and they'll give away free money to people who are
bottom of the rungs and leach this money off the middle class and this has
been going on forever.

Super rich were never affect and still aren't affected.

And in India you need to work 5x as hard if not less to make same wages as
your American counterpart, even then if you manage to make the same wage as
someone I America, you'll find your money can only buy 1/3rd of the benefits
an American can buy.

If your idea of a good life is to work hard and feed a family, congrats, it's
possible in India but if you've more ambition and you want drones, you want
cars, you want anything latest, hell even an iphone, you can't afford that
unless you make 3x of someone in America.

It's the legal version of Robin hood going around who just woo people at the
bottom by fleecing from them who are the middle and letting super rich fleece
from both government and the middle class.

I am just a foreigner in India with an Indian wife, so my understanding might
be limited but I went to meet many public sector and private sector employee
and guess what? Even if a public sector person on paper makes less wages than
private sector one, they always had bigger houses (their own) and bigger cars
and often more properties. How do I know? My wife was friends with many of
them and they were always talking about property prices.

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rajekas
As a middle class Indian who lives in the West much of the time, I think
you're dead wrong. First of all, almost all the state investments go to the
middle class. I was brought up in a state owned company township - in what's
called the public sector - and I got a free education when I was there.

We moved cities and in this new city I went to a private school that took the
rich but also kids of government employees since they wanted to play nice with
the powers that be.

Then I went to a public university that gave me excellent education for which
I paid next to nothing. That in turn got me a scholarship at a major US
research university where I got paid to study.

In other words, I had all the support from a poor society to succeed. Sure, I
worked hard, but so does every manual laborer, car driver, restaurant worker,
house maid and farmer. And guess what: they get very little for their efforts.
Meanwhile the people they work for have drivers and maidservants and care
givers and what not. That's an unequal society.

I don't want a drone. I would much rather the world had way fewer cars. What I
would like is lush forests, cities with sidewalks, good public transport,
healthcare for everyone. And the ability to dream a future that's different
from Lamborghinis. Perhaps seven dimensional universes in which you can turn a
Lamborghini inside out and velcro the seats to a lamp post.

If I may say so, you know very little about India, about what middle class
means, what poverty means and what privileges come from making $10000 a year.

My taxes should be higher.

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gingabriska
But you live in states. Sure, poor people are getting more support but at
expense of all others, I can buy less in India because there are more in India
who depend on government for basics things, it's not same in other countries
with unemployment hitting all time low.

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vmurthy
The devil is in the details. It will affect about a 100000 Indians [1].
However there are various tax breaks on second homes and stuff so the numbers
may go down further.

[1] [https://indianexpress.com/article/india/number-of-
crorepatis...](https://indianexpress.com/article/india/number-of-crorepatis-
has-risen-by-60-per-cent-in-india-cbdt-5412768/)

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jeanlucas
This is not considering corruption, so many rich families avoid this taxation.

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vmurthy
Couple of things to note: if you’re an employee and rich and earning, chances
are minimal because your employer deducts taxes every month and deposits to
the Government. If you own a business and you are rich you can choose a lot of
ways to dodge taxes. Some legal , some not.

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gingabriska
Even in India once you've too much experience and are able to charge top
dollars, you best make a consultancy and charge as a company.

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systemtest
Meanwhile the Netherlands has the 51,7% bracket starting at €68,507 per year,
which isn't even close to upper class income.

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sn41
I'm guessing medicare is free in the Netherlands. India has a public health
sector which works only on paper. And its basic education access for the poor
has been deteriorating in many of the central/northern states.

~~~
another-dave
I'd say that's all the more reason to try and redistribute some of the wealth
to the most affected. (Whether the Indian government will effectively collect
and use the taxes is another matter, but can appreciate the efforts in a
country with such a wide gap between rich/poor)

50 crore == 50 million, so a USD equivalent of $729,550 a year. Would go a
long way in India.

Can't find reliable figures for wages, but from a quick Google, one site put
it at about <$2k a year. Taking that as a rough order of magnitude it would be
the equivalent of levying a tax on American earning over $7M per year (if
average wages are about ~$20k).

~~~
gingabriska
The biggest problem is that Indian government taxes middle class who are few
and there are many havenots in the country

Even if you take away 50% of the money from middle-class, it will not be
sufficient to improve the quality of life of the people at bottom.

This scheme isn't going to work, it just snatches resources from the ones who
can somehow integrate with the global economy and gives to those who have no
idea what to do with it.

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superasn
Here is a more readable version:

[https://outline.com/FSMxUN](https://outline.com/FSMxUN)

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LUmBULtERA
What about once you add local and state income taxes, and factor in other
forms of taxation? Looking at National income taxes is only part of the story.

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vmurthy
Uh , if you’re talking personal income tax , we have only at a
federal/national level

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LUmBULtERA
That's my point -- it's not necessarily higher than the US after you consider
the fact that in the US you will most often be paying other taxes as well.

