[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by avingodb

i have noticed in the neighbourhood that most of the shops have stopped using card machines now and have gone back entirely to cash. They returned it since they feel the 1-2 percent fee is not good for small vendors. So we are back to cash economy again.

Most of them switched to cards machines as cash was not available easily. As for the 1-2% premium then stand to gain more by the hassles they save. More important they are also reverting to the No.2 economy.

[avingodb]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

As for the 1-2% premium then stand to gain more by the hassles they save

This white collar logic does not work on disorganised retail sector, where margins and growth prospects are already pushed by big organised and home delivery app types. Plus, with card machine, they can't get away with estimates invoice receipts, which is what they give every single time and mark up the prices for pucca bills.

So, this is the effect of post De-Mo plus GST.

[sgiitk]

@avingodb; This is exactly what I was referring to in the mention of No.2 economy. However, I do see a reduction in 'off the record' transactions. The retail 'cash and carry' segment is probably Ok but anybody bigger gets caught out by the cascading effect.

[Ford5]

Originally Posted by nikhilck

Cash increases corruption and is used by anti social elements and those who want to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Now that I've had a taste of cashless, I will never go back to using cash. I dislike carrying my wallet these days and mostly just keep it in my backpack. Cashless is the future.

I don't understand the resistance to going cashless. It's the future, just like electric cars are.

Cashless has a 10x ratio of higher corruption because it's all binary numbers leaving behind no trail or leaving a very huge trail but ultimately never recovered. I think you know who I am referring to. Keeping aside your wrong assumption that cash increases corruption, going cashless is having a middle man biting into your share This is the most simplest and logical example of avoiding cashless.

There's been attempts at launching data free cum no merchant fee POS for rural and urban areas, but it has failed because net gain via cashless despite your entire annual small purchase turn over is less than direct cash settlements. Besides, who uses notes to pay anything more than 2K rupees? Why force everybody to fill a middle man's pockets when I can get the job done myself fair and square without fidgeting about with a cell phone prone to a middle man's payment system failure? Which is another elaborate scam if you didn't know as refunds seldom come back from your cashless wallet companies.

[tbppjpr]

One more gain of demonetization, but haters will keep denying it:

Madhya Pradesh sees 300% spike in fake currency since demonetisation, but officials deny link with note ban

"The Centre claimed that the move would diminish the size of the shadow economy by rooting out black money and counterfeit currency used to fund illicit activities, including terrorism.

However, the move to curb the circulation of fake notes seems to have been ineffective in Madhya Pradesh, as the state has seen a 300 percent spike in the counterfeit currency it has seized since demonetization. In the past 20 months, the Madhya Pradesh Police has seized fake notes worth Rs 1.29 crore in both new and old currency notes."

[whitewing]

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

One more gain of demonetization, but haters will keep denying it:

Madhya Pradesh sees 300% spike in fake currency since demonetisation, but officials deny link with note ban

The report says that most common form of fake currency is via photocopy and almost never via printing.
Given this modus operandi, I cannot see a link between demonetization and injection of fake currency.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by whitewing

The report says that most common form of fake currency is via photocopy and almost never via printing.
Given this modus operandi, I cannot see a link between demonetization and injection of fake currency.

One of the key objectives of demonetizaton was elimination of fake currency. By making 500 & 1000 note invalid, old fake currency was eliminated. By introducing fake-proof new currency no new fake currency could be created. Since fake currency is still in circulation, the objective has failed.


PS: Even my marks card cannot be faked by photocopying. How is it possible for currency?

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

One more gain of demonetization, but haters will keep denying it:

Madhya Pradesh sees 300% spike in fake currency since demonetisation, but officials deny link with note ban

Here's what the article says....Sounds like yellow journalism to me at least.

While being interrogated by the police, an accused admitted that they use hi-tech scanners, photocopy machines, colour printers and glitter pens to give their product a real look and feel. They buy good quality paper, scan the notes and print them using the best colour printers after perfecting them using Photoshop. They then make copies of their finished product using the latest photocopy machine. As the final touch, they use glitter pens to add the security thread (the lines that run along the centre of currency notes).

[dailydriver]

I am typing this sitting in the dried up fields of my ancestral village - a place located barely ten kilometres from two major taluk headquarters. Ensconced between two state highways, we have never had it so good in terms of road connectivity. I remember, as a child, sitting on my grandfather's shoulders while he laboriously trod the kuccha road to reach the nearest bus stop, three miles from home.

Though the residents have occasionally dabbled with commercial crops like sugarcane, groundnuts, sunflower and more recently ginger; paddy, ragi and pulses have been their mainstays.

In the days after demonetisation, people struggled to make ends meet; not because they lacked the resources but because the resources they had had been declared illegal by the Government. My uncle, a small farmer and a grocery shop owner recalls how he was forced to close his shop for nearly a fortnight in order to deposit/exchange his cash on one hand and to escape earnest pleas from his neighbour-customers to accept old currency in lieu of grocery, on the other. His ginger harvest remained untouched and unharvested and he had to bear a huge loss on account of that too.

Much sadder is the story of women self help groups. They contribute a certain amount to the community pool each week and use it to lend to the needy members on monthly interest basis. For the sake of convenience, a worldy wise matriculate was handling all the collections and suddenly she ended up possessing a large amount of cash which had absolutely no takers. It took her two full months of bank trips to offload the said cash.

My cousin, a hardworking youngster doing many odd jobs but earning exceedingly well, had all his savings hidden in his metal safe. He was about to purchase a second hand tractor. Forget the tractor, he was unable to utilize his own savings. His lone account was in the local cooperative society. They refused to accept so much money for fear of being targeted by the authorities. In line with rural practice, all the photo frames of Gods in his house have now found inserts of fresh-off the mint 500 and 1000 rupee notes.

The tale of the senior citizens isn't much different or better. Having accumulated all their old age pension moneys in cash and trying to hide it from their hawk eyed grand kids, many of them, specially the women, have innocently still retained many banned notes. My own grandmother, aged 85, surreptitiously passed on two banned five hundred rupee notes to me with a request to do something with them. I could only manage a sad, helpless smile.

The landless labourers and the unskilled workforce have been the worst hit. Almost all of them have migrated to Bengaluru, thereby delivering a death blow to rural economy. Ready for harvest paddy crop is wilting in the sun as there is nary a person willing to or capable of harvesting it. Whole villages have been waiting for huge harvesters to arrive from Tamil Nadu.

It has been an inordinately long and as yet unending wait.

All is not lost however. The general elections are coming soon and that is certain to bring in a money shower; just as the previous state elections did. Suddenly, netagiri has emerged as an attractive professional option.

I, a city bred-educated chap who had turned digital nearly a decade back, look at all this and wonder what good has demonetisation brought to my folks.

What will my granny do with her crumpled high denomination currencies carefully stashed in the hidden compartment of her beetlenut purse.

What happens to my uncle's paddy fields? Who will build those half-completed tile houses that resemble skeletons? Will the SHGs ever go back to their glory days?

Two years is a very short period. But for a father who couldn't organise his daughter's wedding properly and had to make do with a temple ceremony; for a priest who saw his income fall drastically because the devotees have suddenly become careful of their change; for the shopkeeper whose turnover has fallen to less than a quarter of his pre-demo days, these two years have been long, really really long.

Writing these lines reminds me of an oft quoted contention that appeared in my school texts: that India is a country of villages and that the humble farmer is the backbone of the nation.

I can only look back and wonder whether the lines hold water today.

[whitewing]

Originally Posted by dailydriver

I am typing this sitting in the dried up fields of my ancestral village -.................
.........................................

Writing these lines reminds me of an oft quoted contention that appeared in my school texts: that India is a country of villages and that the humble farmer is the backbone of the nation.

I can only look back and wonder whether the lines hold water today.

In these experiments, the common man is the unfortunate victim. Hope this misadventure stays in the memory of whoever comes power over the next decades.


@dailydriver you have an excellent style writing. Thanks for bringing in a very personal perspective.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by dailydriver

My cousin, a hardworking youngster doing many odd jobs but earning exceedingly well, had all his savings hidden in his metal safe. ...

The tale of the senior citizens isn't much different or better. Having accumulated all their old age pension moneys in cash and trying to hide it from their hawk eyed grand kids, many of them, specially the women, have innocently still retained many banned notes.
...
It has been an inordinately long and as yet unending wait.
...
...
I can only look back and wonder whether the lines hold water today.

As much as one sympathizes with the plight of these people, one cannot help but realize for so many years they have been excluded, by chance or by design, from the formal banking sector. No efforts were made to make them digitally aware, either.

When I compare this picture with the one I found, where even a 20 Rs. transaction could be carried out digitally, I cannot help but wonder if the plight of these people could have been improved by bringing them into the formal banking channels.

[V.Narayan]

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelea...x?relid=183216

Press Information Bureau, Government of India
01-September-2018 17:38 IST

Filing of Income Tax Returns registers an upsurge of 71% upto 31st August,2018

There has been a marked improvement in the number of Income Tax Returns(ITRs) filed during FY 2018 (upto 31/08/2018, the extended due date of filing) compared to the corresponding period in the preceding year. The total number of ITRs e-filed upto 31/08/2018 was 5.42 crore as against 3.17 crore upto 31/08/2017, marking an increase of 70.86%. Almost 34.95 lakh returns were uploaded on 31/08/2018 itself, being the last date of the extended due date of filing of ITRs.

A remarkable increase is seen in the number of ITRs in 2 categories ie ITRs filed by salaried Individuals (ITR-1& 2) as also those availing the benefit of the Presumptive Taxation Scheme(ITR-4).

The total number of e-returns of salaried Individual taxpayers filed till 31/08/2018 increased to 3.37 crore from 2.19 crore returns filed during the corresponding period of 2017, registering an increase of 1.18 crore returns translating into a growth of almost 54%.

A growth has been witnessed in the number of returns e-filed by persons availing the benefit of Presumptive Tax, with 1.17 crore returns having been filed upto 31st August, 2018 compared to 14.93 lakh returns upto 31st August, 2017 registering a massive increase of 681.69%.

The increase in the number of returns reveals a marked improvement in the level of voluntary compliance of taxpayers which can be attributed to several factors, including the impact of demonetisation, enhanced persuasion & education of taxpayers as also the impending provision of late fee which would be effective on late filing of returns. This is indicative of an India moving steadily towards a more tax compliant society & reflects the impact of continuous leveraging of technology to improve taxpayer service delivery.

The parallel economy in India is so vast and all pervasive with tentacles in every corner that there is no one single mantra to resolve it. We could like Subramaniam Swamy says scrap income tax altogether especially for individuals, partnerships and HUF and that would make a lot of 'black' in to 'white' in one go. Or we can try stronger measures like digitization and jatka measures like DeMo. In hindsight DeMo seems to have been a pet scheme of the PM without the support of the bureaucracy. I think it will be another year or two before we can really assess if DeMo worked or not at least so far as forcing folks to file IT returns and actually pay taxes.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Or we can try stronger measures like digitization and jatka measures like DeMo. In hindsight DeMo seems to have been a pet scheme of the PM without the support of the bureaucracy. I think it will be another year or two before we can really assess if DeMo worked or not at least so far as forcing folks to file IT returns and actually pay taxes.

All this data is meaningless as it tells the story of ONE year. We should compare it with previous years and see what has been the proportionate rise each year. That would give true idea about what percentage DeMo contributed. The pet project of this PM is "data manipulation".

At the risk of going OT, any data from the govt. agencies should be taken with hugh bag of salt as they must be in overdrive now for preparation of 2019.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

All this data is meaningless as it tells the story of ONE year. We should compare it with previous years and see what has been the proportionate rise each year. That would give true idea about what percentage DeMo contributed. The pet project of this PM is "data manipulation".

Please provide the data to support your point of view - like I have done to support mine. From what I know of earlier years 2017 and 2018 have seen a significant jump in tax filers. I wait for your data. With regard to your statement on data manipulation, well, I don't know where it is coming from - GDP new series? I am sure you are aware that every 10 years the GDP series is adjusted to reflect the changing basket of goods. By your definition data manipulation also happened under earlier regimes.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Please provide the data to support your point of view - like I have done to support mine. From what I know of earlier years 2017 and 2018 have seen a significant jump in tax filers. I wait for your data. With regard to your statement on data manipulation, well, I don't know where it is coming from - GDP new series? I am sure you are aware that every 10 years the GDP series is adjusted to reflect the changing basket of goods. By your definition data manipulation also happened under earlier regimes.

https://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/Do...ta-2017-18.pdf



Please see the rises each year. Nothing outstanding after Demo. Infact we have seen higher jumps in some of the earlier years.



Data manipulation, lol - I would run out of the pictures limit per post. Heres a gem though -