The term meme was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. In this book Dawkins defined a meme as: “A noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission… Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain.”
As he further wrote: “If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.”
In the nearly 50 years since Dawkins defined the term, it has undergone some change in what it means, especially when it comes to memes shared over the social media, everything from Twitter and Facebook to WhatsApp and Instagram.
In a February 2022 piece, The New York Times defines a meme by quoting a popular meme creator, Saint Hoax, “as a piece of media that is repurposed to deliver a cultural, social or political expression, mainly through humour”. In that sense, it’s something visual and humorous which can be shared over social media and captures the prevailing zeitgeist (The defining spirit or mood at a given point of time among a certain set of people.)
The prevailing zeitgeist amongst the well-to-do Indians is that they are paying too much tax (both income tax and other taxes). And they think the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman is responsible for it. And to share their frustration they have been making and sharing funny memes holding her ‘solely’ responsible for this situation. In fact, the stock-market investor Vijay Kedia even made a spoof song on this issue.
This raises several interesting points.
First, the fact that the so-called taxpayers look at the finance minister as the villain of the piece, seems to hold true for people across the political spectrum, even those who vehemently support the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These people are popularly referred to as bhakts.
Second, the inability or the reluctance of these bhakts and others to understand that a finance minister’s decision to introduce a new tax or to carry on with the same set of taxes which the taxpayers feel are on the higher side, is ultimately the decision of the government as a whole and not just the minister’s. Also, any new taxes introduced in the budget through the annual finance bill are ultimately cleared by the Parliament. So, anyone just blaming the finance minister for what they think are high-taxes is essentially being a useful idiot and nothing more.
Third, while a finance minister can introduce new ideas, specific proposals – like any new tax – are cleared by the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister’s office. Let me explain this through an example. Dr Manmohan Singh is widely credited for the economic reforms of 1991 which opened up the Indian economy. Dr Singh was the finance minister in the Narasimha Rao government at that point of time. Now, whatever Dr Singh did wouldn’t have been possible without the explicit support of PM Narasimha Rao because it was ultimately the PM’s political capital which was at stake. So, to reiterate, final decisions are made by governments and not just by ministers.
Fourth, it is important to understand how we ended up here. Over the years, the total expenditure of the central government has gone up. In 2018-19, it was at 12.25 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). GDP is a measure of the size of an economy. It was at 15.2 percent of the GDP in 2023-24. In the post-pandemic world, the government had to spend more money to keep the economy going. If the expenditure of the government goes up, it needs to earn higher taxes to finance it.
In September 2019, the government reduced the tax rate for corporates in the hope that they will invest and spend more. In 2018-19, the corporation tax or the income tax paid by companies, stood at 3.51 percent of the GDP. While spending by corporates has remained sluggish, the corporate tax collections have fallen and stood at 3.12 percent of the GDP in 2023-24.
This despite the fact that corporate profits burgeoned on the back of a lower corporate tax rate, lower interest rates, higher spending by the government, increasing formalisation of the economy and post-pandemic revenge consumption by the well-to-do.
So, while the government spending went up, the corporation tax collected went down. This was compensated for to some extent through higher collections of personal income tax, which jumped from 2.44 percent of the GDP in 2018-19 to 3.35 percent in 2023-24. These collections went up due to higher surcharges on income tax (which have since been reduced), introduction of newer taxes on incomes which till then had been untaxed, increasing tax rates on incomes which were treated preferentially and higher activity in the stock market.
The goods and services tax collections also went up from 3.08 percent of the GDP to 3.24 percent during the period. The rest of the increase in expenditure was largely financed through higher borrowings.
Indeed, this is why many well-to-do feel that they are paying higher taxes while they don’t get much in return. Now, this may be true, but the finance minister alone is not responsible for it.
Fifth, by increasing spending the government also ends up with a higher fiscal deficit or the difference between what it earns and what it spends. This fiscal deficit has been largely financed through higher borrowings. In the years to come this fiscal deficit needs to be brought down and that can only be achieved through lower expenditure and increasing tax collections. So, the feeling among those who are paying high taxes that they are paying high taxes isn’t going to go away in a hurry.
Sixth, cash distribution schemes for women have become a winning political formula in state assembly elections. Since the central government allocates a substantial portion of its revenues to state governments, the growing popularity of cash transfer programmes could further constrain its capacity to lower personal income tax rates. At the same time taxes on incomes which have got preferential treatment till date are likely to keep going up. Also, the 8th Pay Commission has just been announced and that will also bump up government expenditure. Given this, those who are in a position to pay tax will be made to pay tax.
Seventh, don’t try explaining all this to bhakts and other useful idiots. Do remember what Dorothy B Hughes wrote in the crime thriller In a Lonely Place, in a different context: “Anyone with a functioning mind is an insult to their irrationality.”
Eighth, while the useful idiots who pay high income tax are useful in deflecting blame and propaganda on social media, politically they really don’t count. They are irrelevant. As per data released by the income tax department for the assessment year 2023-24 (which means tax returns filed for income earned during the financial year 2022-23), a total of 7.55 crore individuals filed income tax returns. Of these 4.73 crore just filed returns; they paid no income tax. So, around 2.82 crore individuals paid income tax. Data from the World Bank tells us that in 2022, India’s population was around 142.54 crore. So, the number of income tax payers was slightly less than 2 percent of the population. Of these income tax payers, nearly 2.05 crore paid an income tax of up to Rs 1.5 lakh during that year.
This implies that around 76.71 lakh individuals paid an income tax of more than Rs 1.5 lakh during that year. In fact, they paid nearly 87 percent of the income tax paid by individuals. But given that they formed only around 0.5 percent of the population, they can continue making memes and singing songs. And amongst such individuals useful idiots can continue to be useful idiots.
Vivek Kaul is the author of Bad Money.
This article was republished from Newslaundry as part of The News Minute-Newslaundry alliance. Read more about our partnership here.