Fiscal Policy: Advice from the <I>Arthashastra</I> and Other Tax Happenings

Abstract

The tax departments generally look to the West for even rudimentary training, whereas time-tested wisdom available in good measure within our own treatises that have survived the ravages of time is treated with aversion if not derision. The Arthashastra, being a pragmatic manual of all-round statecraft, recognized that a time would arise when the state would have to find additional revenues.