India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes • Hacker News Board

Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes

#301

Post by sfifs » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 2:56 AM UTC

fgpwd wrote: post #178

sfifs wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A currency is useful only if you can buy products and services with it. In India, you buy things in Rupees. Tou can't buy Rupees with dollars without an ID at which point the government knows anyway it's probably just simpler to pay your taxes

There is Bitcoin though

Boils back to the same point - can you buy necessities of life in India today with Bitcoin in the short to medium term? No. So if you're accumulating black money (say you are a property developer) it will be difficult for people who buy houses to pay you.

Also remember that Bitcoin isn't really anonymous and it's fully traceable. So the police merely has to do some rubber hose type de-anonymization of which Bitcoin address was the payment made to you in and from there on, all your transactions can be back-traced.

Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes

#302

Post by wav-part » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 3:20 AM UTC

legolas2412 wrote: post #283

rm2889 wrote: post #167

While this sounds great on face value, I doubt this'll solve the root of the problem. Why did we have so much black money in India? Coz people didn't want to pay taxes. Why didn't people want to pay taxes? Because they got nothing in return. Governments (esp Indian) have been historically self serving and power hungry. Tax money is usually either lost by PSUs loaning to the Mallyas of the world or other corrupt bulls…

> Why didn't people want to pay taxes? Because they got nothing in return. No, they didn't pay taxes because there was no repercussions in evading them. Humans work as Nash equilibirium, and anyone would skip taxes if they could.

Let me be more direct. Do you think

  For small business & middle class,
  
  the government-provided benefits in terms of money[1] - the tax paid > 0 ?

[1] Dont believe/spread the lie that what government provides are invaluable.

Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes

#303

Post by sfifs » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 3:45 AM UTC

The timing is also appears to be aimed at significantly reducing cash availability for elections in the big states of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab which should come in Jan-Feb.

During elections, there is massive voter etc bribery with currency that tends to happen and political party workers tend to intimidate merchants into funding them. Undoubtedly the key political parties have already stashed cash for the elections and all of a sudden, the cash is useless.

Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes

#304

Post by stevekemp » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 3:47 AM UTC

Scirra_Tom wrote: post #132

slg wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grandparent comment wasn't comparing arbitrary units, they were comparing the units of each country's currency denominations. The largest active legal tender in the US is worth $100 while the largest in India was worth $15 (now will be $30). I think it is a fair assumption that those numbers aren't arbitrary and that some thought went into choosing those denominations. That gives you insight into the economies of…

Largest banknote in UK is £50, largest in EU is €500. That does not imply a staggering difference in purchasing power between £ and €.

In the UK there are £100 notes, except they're only issued by a couple of banks. Here is an example:

http://www.worldbanknotescoins.com/2012/02/the-royal-bank-of...

I still remember the first time I got paid with cash, and received a couple of £100 notes. Most money I'd physically held in my hands up until then.

Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes

#305

Post by sjf » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 4:02 AM UTC

callmeal wrote: post #122

sjf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rupee is a closed currency, the OP was never permitted to take the notes of the country in the first place, so there is no way to change them.

You are allowed to carry up to Rs 25000[1] out of India. [1] http://www.livemint.com/Money/xlZJZ0JJQ1xcx7792Vrt2O/DYK-You...

Only for Indians.

Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes

#306

Post by KumarAseem » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 5:23 AM UTC

mkagenius wrote: post #246

yummyfajitas wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or use a credit card. When I had my back surgery a few years back, I just swiped for 1.2 lac. Of course, most people don't have a CC with that high a limit...

> Of course, most people don't have a CC with that high a limit In India, no body has a CC, even debit card is only 22%

In India, it is mostly the poor who don't have CC. Every upper class person has multiple CCs and most of the middle class, specially those in the age of 20-40 have atleast one CC. People may keep just one debit card but they do keep multiple CCs. And now even the poor have bank accounts and many have debit cards.

Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes

#307

Post by rm2889 » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 6:02 AM UTC

wav-part wrote: post #292

legolas2412 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't justify your skirting the laws. Why don't you spend the tax you don't pay to the government to a charity?

I dont want to pay for what I am not getting. Is that so hard to comprehend ? > Don't justify your skirting the laws. Breaking laws ? That would be playing right in their hands. I would not give them the satisfication to confiscate my properties and lock me up. Most of the tax goverments think they should but dont get are legally avoided. They have to be. Otherwise exodus would be catastrophic. > Why don't you spend…

Brilliant. We need to introduce more Indians to the ideas of individual liberty and conservatism as it exists in the United States. By that I mean personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty. The governments in India at every level (starts from municipality all the way to the Center) have been so deep rooted in their corruption that its imperative people understand there are alternates to Big Government.

Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes

#308

Post by an0nym0us2256 » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 7:30 AM UTC

I think Znews misunderstood the GPS thing.

I think the notes have some sort of unique digital ID.unique ID's are not new(we had serial numbers before),but they were difficult to keep track of(bankers can't keep noting serial number of every big note they take or give).but the bank counting machines can now track these numbers in real time,and catch if they find a unique ID is not unique anymore(duplicate). This will mainly help with the counterfeit notes problem.

The black money problem will be helped because they will have to declare or lose their black money during the exchange.

2 birds with 1 stone.. well played modi

Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes

#309

Post by wav-part » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:10 AM UTC

rm2889 wrote: post #307

wav-part wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont want to pay for what I am not getting. Is that so hard to comprehend ? > Don't justify your skirting the laws. Breaking laws ? That would be playing right in their hands. I would not give them the satisfication to confiscate my properties and lock me up. Most of the tax goverments think they should but dont get are legally avoided. They have to be. Otherwise exodus would be catastrophic. > Why don't you spend…

Brilliant. We need to introduce more Indians to the ideas of individual liberty and conservatism as it exists in the United States. By that I mean personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty. The governments in India at every level (starts from municipality all the way to the Center) have been so deep rooted in their corruption that its imperative people understand there are alternat…

> We need to introduce more Indians to the ideas of individual liberty and conservatism as it exists in the United States.

I would not describe USG as such. No government exploit small businesses like USG. Its the government that first adopted income tax in its current form and motivated other governments. But I digress.

In my observation only wars and natural calamities bring social changes. So the whole structure must fall down on its weight for people of India to see the light, despite it being delayed, it will come. Seeing the reponses here and in /r/india we are in full exploitation mode.

I for one not going to hang around. I have stopped thinking of myself as a citizen of a country but as a global citizen. If one country does not appreciate/respect me, I will move to another. See Flag Theory [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_traveler#Flag_theory

Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes

#310

Post by kranner » Wed, Nov 09, 2016, 8:22 AM UTC

aub3bhat wrote: post #32

This is the boldest and probably most brilliant move by any Indian politician since liberalization of economy in 1990s. Having said that, another way of understanding this is that as of today both old 500 Rs and 1000 Rs notes have been "probabilistically devalued". For anyone in middle class and below the value essentially remains the same (other than a small devaluation due to effort required to get them exchanged),…

> the value has been significantly lowered by approximately ~10 to 20% consider when the money gets deposited, there would be an income tax due on it.

How do you figure it's 10%-20%? AFAIK it's a 300% penalty now after the voluntary disclosure scheme has ended (for income that was gained before Sep 30). People are better off burning the money if they can't launder it somehow.