Indians Pay $72 Billion As 'Bribe Taxes' Each Year


Bangalore: The citizens in our country are recurrently reminded of paying the taxes for the welfare of the nation. But, unfortunately, the government, political parties, media and other opinion leaders do not seem to mind the ‘bribe taxes’ the people are bound to pay to make things happen. And, more importantly, it is no longer considered improper.

Paying bribes to get various services done by government officials has already been a womb-to-tomb process. To get a birth certificate, parents need to bribe; for collecting a death certificate, the payment can run more if the government official senses that the certificate is relevant for transferring a huge amount of assets.

Considering the scene, Firstpost.com published the shocking results of an informal research done by R Vaidyanathan, the Professor of Finance, Indian Institute of management, Bangalore, that revealed that the ‘informal taxes’ the ‘aam aadmi’ pay in the form of bribe add up to 4,00,000 crore annually—nearly 6 percent of GDP. And when the corruption scandals’ figures are also counted, it becomes 12 percent of GDP.