Funnycontrol | Budget expectations of an MBA (so they make total sense)

Because a population without a sense of humour would be no fun at all. (Image: Nathan Anderson via Unsplash)

Dear FM,

I am awaiting the outcome of your budget announcements with the same enthusiasm as the box office collection numbers for Pathaan. In the case of Pathaan it will at least be better than Zero, metaphorically and literally. But this is the year of tech layoffs, so I hope you will provide some relief for our over-pampered IT population. For whom the pandemic was a bonanza and the only thing they needed vaccination against was even higher salaries. From the glories of work from home pay hikes, they are now willing to hike to work so they can continue to afford a home. I suggest you grant them some relief. Because if we have an army of unemployed IT folk, they will indulge in cybercrime. And I really don’t want them stealing data from my personal folder C:\OnlyFinance\CapitalGains\Personal.

There is a lot of talk about how you might raise the Long-Term Capital Gains Tax on equities. Luckily, I strictly followed the advice of every financial influencer and market pundit who told me we have decoupled from the global economy so I invested in Indian stocks at a rate higher than  Suryakumar Yadav’s strike rate. Those influencers are now busy decoupling from their own influence. While my portfolio has completely decoupled from any capital gains whatsoever. So I encourage you to go ahead with this tax increase in the name of social media justice.

There is also hope that you will push for affordable housing. As a Mumbaikar, you usually have a choice between affordable or housing. The brokers offer you houses with garbage dump view, slum view or no view. Extra for parking, though you may have to sell your car to afford the parking space.

Salaried employees are also hoping for restoration of standard deduction to 1,00,000/- . Don’t worry, whatever money they save on taxes, they will lose by investing it in the next set of share market tips by the same finfluencers. So the net effect of this measure on the fiscal deficit should be revenue neutral. I am an MBA so obviously what I am saying makes total sense.

I understand that on disinvestment your government is taking a more realistic stand based on past experience of selling family silver in a country where we don’t even throw away old clothes. Perhaps instead of lofty goals like “we will privatize all loss-making PSUs”, we can have more realistic ones like “in 2023, we will create a committee to deliberate upon the deliberations of how to form a committee to sell one PSU-owned fax machine from the 1980s”.

There is also hope for a push for manufacturing with an expansion of the PLI or production/performance linked incentive scheme. One can only hope that this does not result in people manufacturing performance for the linked incentives. But enough about the pseudo return of the licence raj.

Many also feel the old tax slabs have not kept pace with inflation. Twenty-percent on income above Rs 5 lakh and 30 percent on income above Rs 10 lakh has remained unchanged for 10 years. In the same period the cost of a McAloo tikki burger has gone up three times. Which means If I had invested in McAloo tikki burgers, I would have at least beaten inflation if not malnutrition. Request if you can allow taxpayers to pay part of their taxes with inflation linked McAloo tikki burgers so we can all look at your photo on budget day and say “I’m loving it”.

My final request is that you allow any expense on standup comedians as a deduction under section 80D for mental health. Because I can assure you, the only thing worse than an army of unemployed IT workers, is a population with no sense of humour. And nothing will be funnier than a funnycontrol cess on all my competitors.