Income tax reduction doesn't impact economic growth

No one likes to pay taxes, particularly more taxes. Discussions about tax rates rouse emotions as discussions about where those taxes are spent. The influence of tax rates isn’t as significant as the emotional response to them might suggest. The basic question is: Do tax rates—by adding money when cut or subtracting money when raised—result in economic growth or contraction, meaning more or fewer jobs? The structure and financing of a tax change are critical to achieving economic growth. If the tax cuts are not financed by immediate spending cuts, they will result in an increased budget deficit, which will result in inflation and increased interest rates. The net impact on growth is either small or negative or uncertain. Base-broadening measures can eliminate the effect of tax rate cuts on budget deficits. They may also reallocate resources across sectors toward their economic use, increased efficiency and raising the overall size of the economy. All tax changes will not have the same impact on growth. Reforms that improve incentives, reduce subsidies, avoid windfall gains, and avoid deficit financing will have more auspicious effects on the size of the economy, but may also create trade-offs between equity and efficiency. 

• The tax policy can influence economic choices, it is by no means obvious that tax rate cuts will ultimately lead to a larger economy in the long run. 
• The income tax rate cuts would raise the after-tax income to working, saving, and investing, they would also lessens their need to work, save, and invest. The first effect raises economic activity, while the second effect reduces it.
• Tax cuts financed by immediate cuts in unproductive government spending could raise output, but tax cuts financed by reductions in government investment could reduce output.
• If they are not financed by spending cuts, tax cuts will lead to an increase in government borrowing, which in turn, will reduce long-term growth. 
• The historical evidence and analysis suggest that tax cuts that are financed by debt for an extended period of time will actually reduce growth.
• Tax reform is complex, as it involves tax rate cuts as well as base-broadening changes. Such changes should raise the overall size of the economy in the long-term, but the magnitude of the impact are uncertain. 
• Broadening the tax base by reducing or eliminating tax expenditures raises the effective tax rate and hence will operate in a direction opposite to rate cuts and mitigate their effects on economic growth. But base-broadening has the benefit of reallocating resources to sectors that have the highest economic return, which should increase the overall size of the economy.
• A well-designed tax policies have the potential to raise economic growth, but there are many stumbling blocks along the way and certainly no guarantee that all tax changes will improve economic performance. 
• A tax change will be more growth-inducing to the extent that it involves (i) large positive incentive effects that encourage work, saving, and investment; (ii) small or negative income effects, including a careful targeting of tax cuts toward new economic activity, rather than providing windfall gains for previous activities; (iii) reductions in distortions across economic sectors and across different types of income and consumption; and (iv) minimal increases in, or reductions in, the budget deficit.
• Debt-financed tax cuts will tend to boost short-term growth, but also tend to reduce long-term growth, if they are financed eventually by higher taxes. Second, revenue-neutral income tax reform can provide a modest boost to economic growth.
• The tax rate on the average American was around 21% in 1947 and declined to around 15.5%, in 2015. The tax rates for the highest earners dropped from 86.45% in 1947 to 39.60% in 2015.  During this period US economy (GDP) grew from $243 billion in 1947 to $18,905 in 2017. Over that period, taxes increased and decreased; wages climbed and dropped; interest rates rose and fell; and so on. But GDP grew year after. It grew because something other than money drives the spirit.
• Income beyond $250,000 per annum gets tossed into savings & investment account and gets utilized for vulgar spending like gambling, trading, holidaying, ornaments, real estate, vulgar homes, money laundering etc and taxing this money doesn't make any difference to anybody.

Tax cuts that target new economic activity, reduce distortions to the allocation of capital, and are not deficit financed are more likely to lead to economic growth. Advanced countries that decrease their tax rates do not experience less economic growth as changes to the top individual income tax rate are not associated with economic growth. Studies show that the US economy has not grown in conjunction with large changes to individual income tax policy. In summary, the impact of tax cuts on growth depends on how the tax cut is financed and the assumed international capital flows. Failure of capital to flow internationally reduces the likelihood of success of tax rate cuts.

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The income tax created more criminals 

than any other single act of government ... Barry Goldwater

Almost all studies indicated that, income tax reduction has significant and negative impact on economic development. Hence income tax reforms aiming to reduce tax rates benefits only rich to become much richer and is in violation principles of democracy and equality. The present tax regime which taxes class four employees is ridiculous while almost all businessmen pays meager taxes that never exceed 10% of their real income, where as TDS deductions for salaried class starts at Rs.2.5 lakhs pa. The suggested rationalization of tax rates to be as under with stringent penalties for violations.

Since broadening tax base has evil aim of taxing the poor while doling out concessions to the rich with other hand and is unacceptable non-sense as it results in much work and little gain. Riches beyond certain point neither increases consumer spending nor capital accumulation but goes into unproductive spending & laundering that burdens the economy and abuses nature. While intelligence, talent & hard work must be rewarded, the high:low wage ratio of over 10,000 is untenable and must be brought to acceptable 200. Extreme poverty must be subsidized heavily and extreme wealth must be taxed heavily.

Aadhaar issues

• The Unique Identification project was initially conceived to provide a unique identity number for each resident across the country and would be used primarily as the basis for efficient delivery of welfare services. 
• It would also act as a tool for monitoring of various programs and schemes of the Government.
• The objective was to eliminate pilferage and corruption in public distribution system and distribution of subsidies.
• The first UID number was issued on Sep 29, 2010 and 111 crore Aadhaar numbers were issued to the residents of India.
• The Aadhaar enrollment process is designed to allow anyone to get an Aadhaar without any documents mainly because Aadhaar is meant even for those sleep under the flyover.
• Aadhaar is premised on the infallibility and security of an individual’s bio-metric data is a myth. Debates focused on privacy concerns, security of the database and on the legality of making Aadhaar mandatory are unanswered so far. 
• Aadhaar is not an address proof, since the same was not verified and the entities that uses it as an address proof knows it but chooses to remain silent about it.
• Aadhaar is not a proof of citizenship, but can be used to either apply for a passport or obtain other identity documents that can then be used to apply for a passport.
• Aadhaar card can be downloaded and printed and can be considered “original”. UIDAI expects entities to authenticate the Aadhaar number based on OTP or bio-metrics by connecting to the UIDAI system, prior to usage.
• If UIDAI fixes these problems, they run the risk of Aadhaar's reduced usage and becoming irrelevant in public life. If they stay silent, they run the risk of something may go wrong at a large scale in the future.
• The Supreme Court reaffirmed that Aadhaar can only be a voluntary decision of the individual and that as long as a person is eligible to avail benefits and subsidies, the government cannot deny them those benefits and subsidies because one doesn't have an Aadhaar card. Despite this ruling, the central government decided to push through with these moves.
• The Aadhaar Bill was introduced as a money bill in the Lok Sabha which means that the Rajya Sabha could merely make suggestions and that passage through the Lok Sabha would turn the bill into an Act. This matter is being heard by Supreme Court.
• A survey conducted by Andhra Pradesh government saw 48% respondents citing Aadhaar issues as a reason for them missing out on subsidies and benefits. 
• India deals with frequent cyber attacks from China and Pakistan. Hacking the Aadhaar database would be an easy way for other countries to create disruption within India.
• There are many positives that a system like the Aadhaar will have for India. Aadhaar does make managing benefits easier for India but making it mandatory to avail benefit makes the Aadhaar database a prime target for exploitation. Forcing Aadhaar to be mandatory to file taxes opens up an argument on privacy rights. And the government’s argument of privacy not being fundamental does not help assuage any one.
• Since there is no room to verify whether the bio-metrics have been recorded correctly or not leaves scope for fraud of replacing a person’s bio-metric identity, by the enrollment operator, by uploading someone else’s bio-metrics of another person. 
• The bio-metrics is a changeable entity for reasons of ageing, manual labour, injury, illness, etc. and requires periodic update. There is no means to ascertain whether one or more of the bio-metrics is due for update or not until an authentication failure occurs. 
• Authentication using mobile OTP, as an alternative to bio-metrics failures, is an antithesis to bio-metric identity, as it essentially considers a person’s mobile no. to be his unique ID. In banking transactions OTP is another layer of security for transactions.
• There are many ways to commit an Aadhaar-enabled fraud. The potential gains from Aadhaar related fraud are huge, so we should expect people to invest their time, effort and money to stay ahead of the system.

If King disrespects the law, so will his subjects.

My View:
Aadhaar should be issued to resident citizens with validity of ten years. Foreigners resident in India could be issued Aadhaar with different color and validity of one year. Illegal immigrants must never be issued Aadhaar. The issuing criterion and procedure should be made stringent and infallible like passports & driving licenses. The original Aadhaar card with security features should alone be allowed to be used as ID proof, and address proof should be correlated with a recent document like utility bill or post office issued address proof document. Otherwise the intended objectives achievement failure is likely. In this society ruled and administered by crooks & rogues, fraudsters will always find a way to evade taxes and more and more procedures will only end up in harassing honest and gullible citizens. The recent demonetization is a classic example. Aadhaar is a very good idea, badly designed and even more badly implemented.