Ten years back, I was sitting with my Danish friend. She was graduating that year, and was about to join work. She told me she is really excited about joining work, paying taxes, and contributing to the society. I was like "What do you mean by you are excited to pay taxes? You have like 50% tax rate". And she told me, "Yes, I can't wait to pay taxes. I am so looking forward to giving back to the Danish society. I had free education in school all the way to my Post Grad. And the government pays you while you are studying. And great infra, clean air, clean water, free healthcare, good governance, low corruption, safe society, community, etc etc".

Ten years back, I was sitting with my Danish friend. She was graduating that year, and was about to join work. She told me she is really excited about joining work, paying taxes, and contributing to the society. I was like "What do you mean by you are excited to pay taxes? You have like 50% tax rate". And she told me, "Yes, I can't wait to pay taxes. I am so looking forward to giving back to the Danish society. I had free education in school all the way to my Post Grad. And the government pays you while you are studying. And great infra, clean air, clean water, free healthcare, good governance, low corruption, safe society, community, etc etc".

Ashamed, and head hung low I cancelled all my 80C tax deductions, and paid full tax.

Lol okay the first part is true. But I did not do cancel 80C deductions. Mostly because I was bankrupt then and had no income or taxes.

But it did make me fantasise for a second then - how wonderful would our country have been, if there was no corruption, and the tax money came back to the people, and all of us wanted to contribute and make India better, like my Danish friend did

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