Ah, budget time. For India, you've got Chidambaram's interim budget and Modi's proposals, neither of which, frankly, are likely to bear any resemblance to the budget of whichever party or coalition is victorious. Come on now, can anyone really take election campaign promises seriously? Anywhere.

Same thing is taking place in the States, ....

CONCERNED over their shrinking tax bases, and influenced by the public outcry over the tax planning techniques adopted by some multinationals, the G-20 ministers resolved to fight the menace of tax base erosion. Even if it was a G-20 initiative, the OECD, which basically represented the erstwhile ....

From historical times people have always abhorred impositions, whether it was State's taxes or Church's tithes. It used to be ironically lamented that taxes are more certain than death from plague or small pox. The ancient emotion of the subjects ruled by a monarch that taxes always represented extortion travelled down in time ....