{"id":276364,"date":"2026-01-13T00:11:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T18:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/?p=276364"},"modified":"2026-01-13T00:11:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T18:41:25","slug":"we-are-not-tax-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/2026\/01\/13\/we-are-not-tax-free\/","title":{"rendered":"We are not ‘tax-free’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor,<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wish to address a deeply ingrained misconception among our people. There is a false sense of inferiority – or sometimes complacency – that because the indigenous people of Arunachal Pradesh are exempt from direct income tax, we do not contribute to the nation’s revenue. This could not be further from the truth.<\/p>\n

The reality is that we are all heavy taxpayers through the goods and services tax (GST) and other indirect levies. We must look at the maths to understand our contribution.<\/p>\n

Take a simple example of a mobile phone. If a person buys a premium smartphone worth Rs 1,00,000, they are instantly paying Rs 18,000 purely as GST (at 18%). The money goes straight to the government. Similarly, consider the purchase of a car worth Rs 20,00,000. Between GST and the compensation cess, a buyer pays lakhs of rupees in taxes on that single vehicle while RTO, insurance, etc, are additional pure tax to government.<\/p>\n

It does not stop there. We pay heavy taxes on all electronics, substantial land revenue to the state, and fees on every trading activity. Look at the fuel we use; a massive percentage of the petrol and diesel price we pay at the pump is purely central and state tax. Even our bank transactions include processing charges and service taxes.<\/p>\n

Every citizen of this state – from a villager buying a packet of salt to a businessman buying a truck – is fueling the national economy. Direct income tax is just one small component of the country’s tax system. The bulk of development funding comes from the consumption taxes that we pay every single day.<\/p>\n

It is time we recognised our value. We are equal stakeholders in India’s growth, and we have every right to demand development because we have paid for it with every rupee we spend.<\/p>\n

Gedak Taipodia,<\/strong>
\nKangku circle<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor, I wish to address a deeply ingrained misconception among our people. There is a false sense of inferiority – or sometimes complacency – that because the indigenous people of Arunachal Pradesh are exempt from direct income tax, we do not contribute to the nation’s revenue. This could not be further from the truth. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-276364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-readers-forum"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}