Best of BS Opinion: Tax edges, AI whirls, and a still point in memoir

Business Standard

25-07-2025

Some days don't unfold, they unravel. Like those unexpected evenings when you step out for a quiet walk and suddenly find yourself wrestling with a gusty storm pulling at your clothes, and sending loose papers cartwheeling down the street. You clutch your hat tighter, instinctively aware that letting go even for a second might mean watching it sail off like a balloon. You squint, you bend, you anchor yourself. Everything's still there — but only if you hold on with purpose. Let's dive in.
Parliament, for instance, is gripping tightly to the proposed new income tax law. The draft boasts clarity — 536 sections across 23 chapters — but, as our first editorial points out, it's the windier parts that worry watchers. The parliamentary committee has quietly backed vague discretionary powers for tax officials, powers that might let them peek into emails and social media accounts or define business links as 'direct or indirect.' If that's not a hat-loosening draft, what is? Unless clipped and secured, such broad discretion risks unraveling investor confidence and predictable tax enforcement.
Meanwhile, in Delhi, the winds are blowing medals and money. The government has amped up its athlete reward scheme, with Olympic gold winners now set to receive Rs 7 crore. But our second editorial notes that while cash showers are dazzling, they're not enough if Delhi doesn't unshackle its choked public sports infrastructure. Haryana's grassroots sports model shows that it's the steady wind beneath young athletes' wings, not just the grand gusts at the finish line.
Elsewhere, GST reforms are being dusted off. As R Kavita Rao writes, the government is debating how to streamline tax slabs and deal with the compensation cess. But tweaking slabs means stirring up vested interests, and dropping the cess could throw revenue plans off balance. In this political breeze, everyone's holding tight to their numbers.
Then comes the AI squall. A leading Indian music company has called it their top business risk. As Amit Tandon observes, it's not just lyrics and beats being restructured but boardrooms too must now guard against bias, unregulated experimentation, and a widening skill gap, or risk getting swept away by the algorithmic tide.