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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Bandra-Worli Sea Link

I really dont give a damn about what they name the bridge. However, the funny remark is in the last paragraph here

Following a demand by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, the bridge will be named after former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, chief minister Ashok Chavan had announced.

Well I wonder if Mr. Sharad Pawar thinks that he built the brigde with his pocket money which gives him the supreme right to demand something? It is the public money that was used to build the bridge....Why not name it after someone who really symbolizes Mumbai or Maharastra in general.
Ok i will stop...I dont have the right to bore you now...

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Election 2009 - Googly?

Congress has won and BJP has lost...the writing is on the wall (and on almost every other newspaper worth of its salt). There has been a rush of theories trying to show that this was obvious ( like it always happens). However, it is very clear that even the UPA did not expect such a mandate. Infact, the markets were very nervous on the friday with news of a hung parliment making rounds.

What really happened during the different phases of the election?
I am not a guru on these topics to give a lot of inputs. However, i have been trying to understand what happened.
For one, there was the anti-incumbancy factor that was against the Congress. There were other major problems including the Terrorist attack in November and foolish and irrational statements made by the congress leaders afterwards. Yet, Congress managed to be one of the favorites among the metros ( Sweeping Delhi with all 7 seats!!).
Technically speaking, the NDA was a in a very good position to win this elections.

However, the BJP tone was not really the best. Though it portayed strength and a strong leader it also showed that it was more interested in portarying what UPA had not done rather that what they wanted to do. There was enough mud-slinging in the last few days of election campaigning that could perturb any  sane BJP supporter.The article here differs with the above view and makes a good reading.

The other school of thought is that the youth voted out the BJP. I do not agree to this in totality. However, it is true that the "Mangalore Pub incident" ( though BJP was not directly involved) changed the young voters sentiments. Also, they felt that they could relate to Mr. Rahul Gandhi who represented the youth. Sometimes i just feel that it was a case of  " A known devil is better than an unknown angel".

What should BJP do if it intends to come back ?
First it should try to understand why they lost some of their home grounds. From 50 odd seats a decade back in UP to just 8. That is a pointer that there is something really going wrong. Second, shed the saffron image to an extent when it makes logical sense. Swapan Dasgupta puts it aptly here
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In
2004, the Congress didn't win the election, the BJP lost it.......

The
BJP must once again ask the question it once addressed but has conveniently
forgotten to ask of late: is it content to being a sectional player or does it
want to be a serious contender for power?

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Promotion of younger blood up the ranks is a must for a young and exuberant growing economy. With the youth and the village folks making up a majority of the poplulation i guess it is time that the NDA looks into these aspects also.

Having said all that, and having said that again.....In the end In a country like India.....elections and governments are bound to be unpredicatable....Thatz why they say, India is not a country it is a subcontinent. Good part is that we do not have a fractured mandate and hopefully we will have a strong and capable govenment for the next five years.
(If not, you will see me writing something again in this regard...claiming why it all had to happen :P)


[ Btw, some folks in my office feel that the poll results could be rigged...no comments!!]

Update: One more nice article that i came across.


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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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They are free already!!

In the big Idea here, Ms Beards suggests that all the criminals who can be considered NOT as direct threats to the society can be let off or atleast be made to do something which makes them more productive than just locking them up..

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I don't want to see errant bankers get off scot-free. I want to see them working their socks off to pay back what they have stolen. Couldn't we get them building a few schools, hospitals, railways?
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This is in stark contrast to what happens in India. In India criminals are really free. I say this because I know that a big chunk of our politicians are actually either criminals who have been acquitted due to lack of evidence ( read use of muscle and money power) or are folks who have a bunch of cases pending against them..

What can we do to punish these criminals, who are now wearing a white coat and calling themselves our leaders?

(Note: I found this on wiki)

Recession - Whatz that??

Well did I not tell you general...."India is not effected by recession"....

And why not. After reading this will not leave even an iota of doubt in your mind. It makes me wonder what our country could be if all this money was used for the right purposes instead of putting up some posters and airing of some ad campaigns? Mind Boggling sums of money are being used up by our politicians, before and after elections. It is a shame that the second largest economy is using such huge proportions of money in advertisements while more than 25% of the population is below poverty line.

God bless India!!