The other day I and two of my friends had to go to play cricket. My bike’s rear tube had a whole in it. All of us rode on one bike and escaped a traffic check and were laughing on the incompetency of the traffic policeman to catch us and admiring my friend’s biking skills at the same time. Later did I realize that we had broken the law without paying for it.
I thought about the other alternative: I could have spent about 100 bucks on an auto rickshaw after 10 minutes of painful bargaining. I would like to stress on the word painful because to me it seems that the auto drivers have some business mantra which may sound like, “A man in need is a man to be screwed”. Mumbaikars are one of the few lucky ones who do not have to go through this bargaining pain. Coming to the point, we had broken the law and didn’t pay for it. Yet we do not have any shame in sharing Anna Hazare's picture on Facebook titled, “Stop Corruption”. Do we really want to stop it?
The other day on the birthday of Legendary A.R Rehman I downloaded some of his songs from the website Songs.pk. Again I realized that I have done an act of corruption and by the ongoing rumors I have also funded the terror attacks on India.
As a Chartered Accountant student(yeah, we are the ones who save your money so that you don't give it in the hands of people you hate) I do have ethical dilemmas about Tax Planning. Is it morally correct? Whether manipulating the law in a systematic and legal way makes me honest? Am I really contributing to the nation ?
Tax has to be the best investment a man makes in his entire life. It is supposed to take care of the needy and the people who make this investment. It is supposed to improve our standard of living and provide us with a better country and a better infrastructure. Though for ages and years tax is shown under the Head “Expenses”. A finance minister is supposed to be the best man who can handle your money and when people get a feeling that their money is being mishandled then tax is termed as an expense and evaded.
By now, piracy is something that we all have committed. If you haven't done it yet then either your dad is a billionaire or possibly you don't know how to do it (which is very improbable). Many of us do piracy without even knowing that we are doing something wrong but since "Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat" (Ignorance of law is not an excuse) you really don't have an excuse.
We even don't know how many times we have broken the laws of Motor Vehicles Act, 1998 and yet we are very pleased in supporting the cause of Anna Hazare's blindly.
Do we really want to have strict laws ? Are we of the opinion that corruption when done by others is crime and when done by us stands correct ? Do we really want to change the nation ? Do you swear that you won't touch a bike or a car before 18 ? Will you never download pirated stuff from internet ? Are you really ready to change? Isn't it that we want others to change without changing ourselves ?
