A foolproof system to prevent tax evasion and destroy the black money economy - An Ethmos perspective - PART III

You might be thinking by now that the Ethmos guys have gone complete nuts considering the stupid and moronic things we have been yelling and telling since the past few days about Greece, black money, financial trails, and the corruption that leads to the black money.  So just to reinforce your views, we present another piece of crap for you to think and contemplate about.

Public audit systems (PAS)

What is audit?  Audit is nothing but the checks and balances in any system in the form of re-verification and certification of any completed or ongoing work.  It is nothing but an independent view regarding the loopholes in the system as well as the improvements that can be brought about in the system.  Why is it required?  In simple terms, it is required in create a fear of accountability and serious repercussions in the head of the person who thinks of doing any mischief or who thinks that just completing the job somehow regardless of quality will do just fine.  But then, if such checks and balances are there, why is that so much corruption is existing in the country?  We believe that the audit systems presently prevailing in the country are simply inadequate to create the "threshold" limit of fear and accountability in the officials responsible for the public work.  Hence, we would like to introduce the concept of public audit systems.

So what will be this system?  The public audit system or PAS as we would like to abbreviate it will be a system by which any common man can go and verify the records of any public office.  This will be more or less an extension of the right to information act but the only addition being that in PAS, the citizen gets the right to verify the information provided by RTI.  In case of RTI, we are solely dependent on the information provided by the concerned department and the same is taken at face value.  Many a times, the RTI replies are given in an ambiguous manner so that the procedure is dragged based on stupid technicalities and it is more or less a test of the applicant's persistence and perseverance to get a clear cut reply from the government departments.

Now the question will arise that if any such system is introduced it will also lead to interruption of regular work being done by the departments and most of time will be utilized for additional audit replies for comments from the PAS audit.  And PAS audit will be apart from other internal and external audits, which will consume more time for the departments.  To overcome this problem, what we suggest is that just like the RTI cell in every organization, a PAS cell should also be created in every organization and department which will handle the PAS.  Any citizen willing to conduct a PAS will have to approach the PAS cell just like he approaches the Chief Information Officer of the concerned department for RTI.  The applicant has to clearly state which file he needs to audit and as with all our other suggestions, we suggest that the entire thing be made online so that no manual application or paper wastage is to be done for doing this and proper tracking of applications can be made.  Further it will remove the possibility of duplication of work because if one file is being audited by one entity, then at the same time, it need not be done by another person.  The results or comments of this audit will be published online and if any further queries are there, any other citizen can conduct a fresh audit or "continuation audit" of the particular file.

Receipt monitoring system (RMS):  This will be an added tool for monitoring by PAS.  Many a times, you would have got a challan from a traffic constable who would have stopped you for not wearing the helmet or "supposed" over-speeding.  After you pay the fine, the official will issue you a challan for the said amount.  Now how to determine if the amount you paid has actually been remitted to the government account?  That's where RMS comes to the fore.  RMS will be the central database of all challans issued throughout the country.  Challans should NOT be manual and have to be issued through a centralized device (like ticket issuing devices) and the database should be updated on a daily basis.  Every challan should have a unique "challan ID" which can be able to input in the RMS database and check whether the amount has been credited to the public account or not.  If you have received a challan but say after 2 days also, the challan amount is not getting reflected in the database, then there should be a functionality to inform the same online so that corrective measures can be taken and accountability fixed.

These two systems apart from the M2 machine, CETRAD, OPOF, & EUF will lead to a system wherein hiding of unaccounted money will become next to impossible for the wrongdoers.  Please note that the M2 machine deals with the overall black money economy; CETRAD, OPOF, & EUF will deals with the black money in business segment of the economy; PAS & RMS deals with the black money in the public sector/government sector; and the FTR (financial trail reports) deals with the already "corrupt rich."  We strongly believe that, if these measures are implemented, then it will become nearly impossible to store black money as cash/currency/money but again for the imaginative & creative corrupts, we give the idea of barter system!  Don't worry we will surely think of a way to overcome the "barter corruption" also - just give Ethmos some time.

Happy Ethmos to all!