Killing the goose?

BS OPINION

 Even if the tax collector is not concerned about the larger economic issues which everyone else may place at the top of their list of priorities (like employment and income generation), he should pause and think for a moment about the trade-off between a larger share of a smaller pie and a smaller share of a much larger pie.

 If a business is growing at 50 per cent per annum, the government should be doing everything possible to make such growth continue, not killing the goose that lays the eggs.

 Indeed, as several firms this newspaper spoke to have pointed out, the move to tax telemarketing on the basis of the value of goods or services sold through such calls, for instance, is forcing them to reconsider moves to set up offshore units in India, since there are after all alternative locations where the Indian taxman cannot reach, like the Philippines.

 Indeed, the possibility of aggressive Indian tax laws (or aggressive interpretation of such laws) will already have become one of the risk factors that companies will now add to the other system risks in India, like the possibility of nuclear war in the subcontinent, and India