One month's salary for charity means 8-1/2 p.c. of pay in a year. This applies, of course, to salaried people. Roughly speaking, a salaried person earning Rs.3 lakh per year pays about Rs.75,000 as income tax, which is the equivalent to 3 months' pay. In these days of high cost of living, a husband and wife (assumed not working, or contributing anything more than Rs.8000 per month or so) can hardly make both ends meet if they want to live in tolerable living conditions in a not over congested locality. Hence only those earning higher incomes and certainly that very large section of small businesses who evade taxes of all kinds and the huge esection of agriculturists who pay hardly any tax due to incomes from land and properties virtually going unassessed must be taxed. Our IT and other tax organizations are both corrupt and inept, while our general policy towards them is overly lenient, for netting all the dues for the exchequer. If this failure is made up for [but how? !], charity is going to be a very grudging affair for the rest of the population. Indeed if this failure is overcome, the govt. will only need to spend the money wisely for povery alleviation. Right now official machinery for povery alleviation is ridden with inefficiency, political favoritism, and corruption due to fake documentation. Computerized statewide and nationwide documentation and data systems must be installed, but only after due arrangements to produce enough trained manpower to operate and mai
