In his enthusiasm to widen the tax net, former finance minister P Chidambaram included cell phone ownership as one of the criteria for tracking those who ought to file income tax returns but do not and consequently pay no taxes. But the news item Subscription drops 60 per cent on IT fear (April 2) shows that the move will eventually backfire.
The government had selected several other criteria property, car and foreign travel for the tracking but so far only cell phone owners have been singled out. Extremely threatening letters have been dispatched to cell phone owners. This has naturally scared away subscribers.