Income Tax Filing - 09-10

 Till last year, or so to say last assessment year (This is Assessment year  09-10. ), I would just fill in whatever i was asked to by the Consultant in our company and then by end of July he would provide me with an acknowledgement form which said that all my tax returns related issues where taken care of. The best part of the whole process was that it was free becuase of which i never ever bothered to delve deeper into it. This year i am in a different firm and these blokes dont have any arrangement with some tax consulatant to provide us with this assistance. The guy who does come to my office to help us with the tax filing procedure charges 300 bucks...I thought that this i will do it myself and started to look out for a DO-IT-YOURSELF tax filing guide. I did not have to look far because the Income-Tax website provides a very comprehensive list of faq's & Tutorials which make filing your tax a peice of cake. It took me about 5 minutes that ITR-I was the one that i needed to use. You will have to register on the website to file the returns. This is a bit tricky because the server undergoes routine maintainance & will not allow registration during those hours....(However, the error messages are totally non intutive and incorrect that it throws up during these hours!!).

You will have to download a tool to file your returns. The Excel based tool is quite well made and ensures that you do not make any silly mistakes. ( You will need to enable macro's to ensure that they work fine). The Engineer in me tried to look at the code which ofcourse was well protected by a password. There are two versions of the tool one is Excel based for those who have Microsoft Excel installed on their computers. The other version is Adobe's PDF form which can be edited.I did not try that one but i am sure even that will work the same way. Your Form-16 is the source for most of the information that is needed in the form. In case you have some other sources of income you will have to fill that information as well.

The tool output's an XML file which encapuslates all the information that has been entered by you in the Excel sheet. You will have to login into the website (to which by now you would have registered) and then you upload the XML file. You are almost done with filing your return. However, the acknowledgement of having filed the return (ITRV) will be emailed to you in the form of a zip file. On extraction the zip file provides you with a PDF file which is password protected. ( Password = PAN NUMBER+DDMMYYYY(date of birth)). Please note that you will have to enter the password in all lower case ( Took a while to figure this out!!). Take a printout of this and bless it with an autograph of yours & mail it to the address mentioned on the form. That should complete the process of filing for you. Here is a web demo from the website.

So guys & Gals buy yourself a good movie ticket or a good meal for the 300 bucks....and do the tax filing yourself

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Aussie agression

How long will this continue?

Ashish was reportedly hit by a metal object and the police was called.Ashish was admitted to Alferd Hospital with serious injuries and later discharged.

 In the past couple of weeks the atrocities that have been meant on innocent Indian students in Australia is alarming. The government so far doesn't seem to have done anything concrete ( that is both the Australian Government & their Indian counterparts!!). To save grace after so many days of complete anarchy Kevin Rudd (PM Aussie land!!) has promised that there would be action taken against the guilty. However, the students in the rally which took place in Australia (showing protest against the attacks) went under the police baton.

Ideally, the Australian government should be more worried about such attacks because in the wake of such events most of the student fraternity would strike off Australia from its list of preferred destination for higher education. This would not only impact Australian universities but also have a cascade effect on the society.

Lastly, In India still there are a lot of folks who believe in Tit-for-Tat policy. So do not be surprised if we see attacks happening on Australian nationals in India.
India should get global spotlight on this matter ( which is no more a stray case of racism!!) and mount pressure on Australia to ensure that safety of non-australian students in Australia. The Australian government on its part should ensure that the miscreants ( which i am sure is a very small group, It is not that overnight the Australians started hating us!!) are taken to task. This will really show that Australia is really interested in keeping up this relationship with our country. Of course, in India we ought to ensure that no retaliatory attacks happen against foreign nationals ( Aussies or otherwise).

Mantriji narrated this one.
A british man once went to Australia...
At the immigration the young Aussie officer asked him
"Sir, Do you have any crimminal record"
pat came the reply from the Englishman
" Jesus, I never knew you still require one to visit Australia!!"

Finally, It is for the Aussies to prove that they have left their crimminal ways!!
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Fun with Law!!

This is a funny article however, i like the judgement

Under UK law most food carries no VAT. However, coated biscuits and "potato crisps, potato sticks, potato puffs and similar products made from the potato, or from potato flour, or from potato starch", are subject to a tax of 15 per cent.......

.....The company argued that Pringles were not potatoey enough to be taxed.

"There is more than enough potato content for it to be a reasonable view that it is made from potato," he said.

I wonder how many packs did the judge have to eat to confirm that it was "Potatoey" enough to be brought under the VAT ruling which applies to the potato based products in UK.

One more cool verdict is here

The judgment is rare in many ways, as it confirms that electromagnetic waves emitted during power transmission could be injurious to health. Neither the court nor the state questioned the district magistrate's finding that the emission from power lines can affect hens' egg-laying capacity.

I hope only the hens are the ones who are effected ;-)

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Kasab goes scot-free!!

I was not too happy when there were too many proceedings going on for the Kasab case. I was slowly getting a feeling that somewhere there would be some loophole that was waiting to get exploited.

After i read this article today in IBN, I tend to believe that the devil who dared to enter world's largest democracy ; That too at the heart of its financial capital and killed scores of innocent people might go scot free or with some minimal punishment.

Reason: There are loopholes in our law.
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The maximum punishment prescribed under Juvenile Justice Act is three years, Kazmi said.
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Do we always have to look only at the age and not the henious crime done by the individual? If finally I see Kasab going free after 3 years, it would not only be shameful but also would show that we really do not value human life or those of the martyrs who laid down their lives for an ungrateful nation.

Hey by the way, have you noticed that a bullet fired from a gun held by a 16 year old has the same effect as the gun fired by a 60 year old...Looks like the folks who wrote the damned law forgot this...Or where they also not able to understand anything ( As Kasab has been claiming in almost every hearing!!)

More on LAW


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Chinese PirateBay, What say?

How should we react to these two seemingly opposite things happening at almost the same point in time.

1. Court jails Pirate Bay founders
   

2. Google offers free music downloads in China

Now in the first article, John Kennedy chairman of IFPI states
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"There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that,"
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And in the second article

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If you can't beat 'em, join 'em......[.....]

Most Chinese users get their music for free anyway, thanks to rampant online piracy. [....]
Google wants to increase traffic and catch up to its competitor Baidu
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So now does that mean PirateBay founders should have chosen China over Sweden for their servers? Or does it mean that if you belong to a nation with stronger muscle power then piracy is acceptable. You decide.


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Bonobo styled justice

Some time back i had ranted about the way justice is being rendered in our country. However, in a recent internet-loafing session i found this.
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"That's right, bonobos are believed to resolve issues over food and territory not through violence, but through sex."
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If this idea is accepted by our judiciary then i am sure that all the cases that are pending today will vanish in no time. In-fact, I am sure there will many who will be more than happy to resolve the issue in this way.

Slow paced Indian Law

Funny but true. This article from DNA shows the extremely nonsensical nature of how law works in India. I am not a lawyer, but i do understand that that it does not show any common sense to drag a trivial case ( Which according to me doesn't make much sense) for almost a decade.

How, can the actors do anything if people gather around to see them. If that were the case, I would blame every political party that holds a rally for my delay in returning back home due to clogged roads.  Anyway, I know that if i file a petition today, by the time the judge decides upon something it would be 2020 ( if i am lucky).

Jokes apart, what this brings into light is the fact that our judiciary functions at snail pace. This often leads to justice being "so" delayed that it loses its meaning. Hope we realise this issue which is some day going to blow into such proportions that it would make asking for justice a stupid joke.