There is clear discrimination in calculating taxable income for salaried employees Vs businessmen and this needs to change.

Salaried employees are forced to pay higher taxes, additional cess and are not permitted to claim any expense whereas business community is permitted to claim all expenses and pay tax on left over income and this is not justifiable and demands change.

Currently an employee who earns well is not able to claim relief even on money paid as house rent since the draconian tax structure conveniently considers the rule of (actual rent paid minus 10% of basic salary). This rule ensures that the employee besides paying rent also pays 35% tax on most part of rent. Illustration - rent of 1.3lac pm and salary of 12lac per month, only 70k can be claimed as expense and one needs to pay 20k as tax while paying this rent, meaning total cost of rent is 1.5lac?? This is really odd.

A trader or businessman earning 12lac per month can buy a luxury car, claim almost 100% of car cost as depreciation over 6 years but a salaried employee is not allowed to treat purchase of same car as an expense? Why? If the gross income is same then why is it that same car is considered as critical expense for the businessman but not for the salaried employee? The rule should be consistent.

I feel that this is very unfair and the rules should be changed on priority to ensure each tax payer is treated with the same yardstick.

So, either reduce direct tax or permit expense ..period!