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Opinion
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Accountancy
Columns
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Account Speak
Budget blues
D. Murali
YOU could be one of the many who woke up late today, squinting to check whether a friendly goblin had wiped Feb 28 off the face of the calendar. Perhaps such things happen in fairy tales. But lesser mortals have to face the stark reality of seeing Sinha `live' on TV, and find ways to beat the Budget blues. Here are a few helpful thoughts.
Don't try to understand every line of what the FM says. Normal CAs are not known to wake up till he comes to the direct taxes proposals. That could be after paragraph 145.
Avoid watching TV in the company of non-CAs. You may let others see through your veil of `knowledge' and there could be the odd one there who asks you the tricky question about Section 44(1)(e).
Avoid giving any direct reply to any query. Learn from how the advocates of convicted politicians react by saying, "I'll have to read the judgment." For you, it's the Finance Bill.
Put your breakfast and lunch, and dinner thereafter, on autopilot. There is no weighted deduction for losing weight by starving.
It is not important how many glasses of water the FM drinks. You may need more.
Try to have a hang of percentages. You could feel good about some of them going up; such as exports or exemption limits. But there are those — like poverty, interest payments and tax rates — that have to relatively fall to give comfort.
Generally, exemptions are good, withdrawals are bad, but withdrawal of tax or surcharge is good, and exemption from a benefit is not good.
It feels great to laugh when the FM quotes a snatch from some poetry even if you don't understand a thing. As Thiruvalluvar says, "Idukkan varungaal naguga" (laugh a difficulty off).
Keep your ears sharpened to pick up key words such as: economic criteria, service tax, interest rate, retrospective, penalty, and so on. At the end of the day, don't feel euphoric if you don't get killed by the Budget. That could happen when analysts get to do their job.
hindubusinessline@hotmail.com
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