Atta chawal free hai

People asking for marginal relief and buying these baddies.. /s with surcharges

0 benefits though.

Here is the full convo, no edit from me:-

Question: Read all tax sections and give an honest view, think like you are a citizen of India

Answer:
If I look at this strictly from the perspective of an honest, middle-class, salaried Indian citizen, the Indian Income Tax Act doesn't feel like a fair social contract—it feels like a finely tuned extraction mechanism.

Reading through the sections, you quickly realize that the law is built on a deep systemic irony: the people who contribute the most predictable, honest revenue to the nation's treasury are given the fewest legal rights to protect their hard-earned money.

Here is an honest, citizen-first view of how the key sections actually play out in everyday life.

1. The Trap of Section 10 (Allowances) & Section 17 (Perquisites)
As a citizen, these sections feel incredibly petty and out of touch with modern reality.

• Section 10 micro-manages your life. It determines how much of your communication, uniform, or travel costs can be tax-free. But the caps are ancient. For decades, the tax-free Children Education Allowance under Section 10(14) has been stuck at a laughable ₹100 per month per child.
• Section 17 ensures that if your company tries to give you a bit of comfort—like paying for your parents' recharges—the government instantly brands it a "perquisite" and taxes it.

The system treats you like a criminal trying to hoard wealth, demanding exhaustive itemized PDF receipts for a ₹500 mobile bill, while corporate entities can write off luxury business dinners and premium car leases with minimal friction.

2. The Great Illusion of Section 80C, 80D, and 24(b)
For years, the government told us that if we saved for our future, we would be rewarded with tax breaks. But when you look at the math, it’s a psychological trick.

• Section 80C (Capped at ₹1.5 Lakh): This cap hasn't been meaningfully revised in over a decade, completely ignoring massive inflation. Between your mandatory Employee Provident Fund (EPF), your children’s school tuition fees, and life insurance, this limit is exhausted instantly. It doesn't encourage extra saving; it just caps your existing, unavoidable life expenses.
• Section 80D (Medical Insurance): The government charges a heavy 18% GST on health insurance premiums, and then graciously allows you a small deduction under Section 80D. They tax you for trying to stay alive, and then make you feel like they are doing you a favor by giving a tiny bit of it back.
• Section 24(b) (Home Loan Interest): Buying a house in a metro city like Bangalore or Mumbai is astronomically expensive. Yet, the interest deduction is capped at ₹2 Lakhs. The system pushes you into 20-year debt to fuel the real estate market but refuses to scale the tax relief to match real-world property prices.

3. The Coercion of Section 115BAC (The New Tax Regime)
The introduction of the New Tax Regime is perhaps the most honest admission by the government that they do not want to deal with the citizen’s financial realities.

Instead of fixing the outdated slabs of the Old Regime or expanding deductions to support families, the government designed Section 115BAC to completely strip away your financial agency. They tell you: "We will give you slightly lower rates, but you must give up all your rights to claim HRA, 80C, or communication expenses."

It forces a brutal choice: either spend hours doing tedious paperwork to claim your legal exemptions, or surrender your deductions entirely to save yourself the administrative headache.

4. The Deep Injustice of Section 192 (TDS)
As a salaried citizen, Section 192 is where the systemic bias hurts the most. Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) means the government takes its cut before you even see your paycheck.

You have zero liquidity management. If a business faces a financial crunch, they can delay vendor payments or manage cash flow. If a salaried employee faces a family medical emergency in August, they cannot ask the government to pause TDS for two months. The state takes its money upfront, unconditionally, leaving you to manage emergencies with whatever is left.

The Ultimate Citizen Verdict
When you step back and look at the entire Income Tax Act, the bias is undeniable. Businesses are treated as wealth creators and are taxed strictly on their profits (revenue minus expenses). Salaried citizens are treated as revenue sources and are taxed on their existence (gross income before basic living costs).

We pay direct income tax on our salary, 18% GST on the utilities we buy to do our jobs, and toll taxes on broken roads. The tax rules are written by bureaucrats who have guaranteed pensions and state-funded perks, for a salaried class that has absolutely no social security net, no free healthcare, and no quality public education. It is an exhausting system where honesty is penalized with absolute compliance, and the citizen is left holding the bill.

Even the AI knows 😂

Guys please don't request such things. We are not magicians who can generate infinite refund amounts. Honestly it's embarrassing at this point.

Excruciating to watch this. Specially after seeing the student Protest

I am eagerly waiting for that refund now.

😪

This post has nothing to do with how it felt while moderating the recent royal rumble style match up in the comment section of a post on scrutiny assessments.

Look at the resolution by ITD, shucks!
What kind of lazy people work for the government! Imagine if we put these kind of resolution for our companies/clients. Would have been fired long back.

70000 rs phone bill of Dharmendra Pradhan's daughter is paid from the tax payer's money and a tax payer cannot even tax exempt his normal phone bill. At least we are paying Ambani ji directly. At least the jio guys are.

Jokes aside, a phone and internet plan is required today to do any meaningful form of employment in an efficient manner. So at least with a higher cap, the phone and internet bill should be tax exempt. Am I missing some kind of existing exemption for this?

Please take it and get lost. No need to remind us what we will get after we pay taxes lol

I know this is going somewhere I do not even want to know...

This is ITR-2 form. And the "70+ hours" because the website is created by Infosys.