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About 15 years ago, a Parsi business family was raided by the income tax department. As is the norm, the raid was simultaneously conducted at multiple locations, just after sunrise. A posse of taxmen along with police constables rang the doorbell and gruffly announced their mission to the domestic help who unsuspectingly opened the door. A formidable lady, looking like an enraged Medusa, stormed out of her bedroom and screamed at the hapless income tax officer. "Get out of here,” she imperiously commanded the baffled raiding party who was accustomed to seeing fear on the faces of those being raided. "But, Madam, we have a search warrant,” whispered the otherwise awe inspiring officer, who instinctively felt that this lady was from a different galaxy. "At this very moment, your husband is fully cooperating with our team at his office,” he informed. "I am no longer that bastard’s wife,” she shouted, "we have been divorced.” The officer thought of asking to see her divorce decree but was deterred by the fire and brimstone emitting entity in front of him and sheepishly signalled his team to retreat. Parsi women don’t lie, he muttered to his assistant.

 

 

 

 

 

It is widely believed, and correctly so, that Parsis are honest taxpayers. A former advocate general of Maharashtra, known for his spotless integrity, had told this columnist that when the gold control order was promulgated in the 1960s, he painstakingly explained the salient features of the law to his seven-year-old son so that the child could take an informed decision on whether to exchange the gold buttons bequeathed to him by his maternal grandfather for gold bonds issued by the government.
When Y. B. Chavan was union finance minister, the highest slab of income tax reached 98%, and along with wealth tax amounted to 102%. Many wealthy Parsis borrowed money to pay taxes which exceeded their income. They would then attend the iconic Nani Palkhivala’s post budget analysis at the Brabourne Stadium and vigorously applaud his denouncing the expropriatory rate of taxation by the banana republic being run by the dhotiadas (ruling elite who wore dhotis).
Up to March 16, 1985, there was a draconian death duty levied in India (about to be reintroduced, according to the grapevine). On an estate of Rs 20 lakhs or more, the estate duty rate was a staggering 85%. What saved great wealth from being wiped out was the Parsi penchant for creating private family trusts which enabled transfer of property to skip a generation or two and thereby avoid estate duty. Little wonder then that the authoritative treatise on estate duty law was written by a Parsi father-and-son lawyer team, Hoshang Nanavati and his late father Dhunjishaw, both partners of the venerable law firm Mulla and Mulla, Craigie, Blunt and Caroe.
A young Parsi girl lost her parents in a short span of time of six months and one day; had she lost them within six months, she would have been entitled to claim an exemption called quick succession relief of only 50% estate duty on the second death. Her tax consultant suggested obtaining a death certificate from the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) dated a day or two earlier through some inducements to the Doongerwadi staff. The female simply refused and let go of the exemption.
A Parsi liquor baron died 48 hours before the then finance minister V. P. Singh abolished estate duty, which led to much mourning amongst his comely daughters as to how pappa had passed rather prematurely into the great beyond. Estate duty inspired much fear and one blunt son, over lunch at the Ripon Club, suggested to his rich, ageing father suffering from clogged arteries to consider joining the Border Security Force and be felled in enemy action, since there was total exemption from estate duty for those who had been killed in war!
Parsis are honest taxpayers. They are generally averse to greasing itchy palms and quite enjoy litigating against the perverse orders of the tax department before the High Court and Supreme Court. No wonder then that the finest tax counsel that India ever had is a devout and committed Zoroastrian, Soli Dastur, whom we rather foolishly tried to make a trustee of the BPP in the 2008 elections. His chamber has spawned many leading Parsi tax counsel like the much sought after senior counsel Percy Pardiwalla.
Of course, there have been quite a few innovative Parsi tax consultants (most of the colorful ones are long deceased) who were not averse to playing by the rules of the game. One such consultant, Mr B, who had a largely Parsi clientele, once invited the income tax officer and his twin brats for dinner to his harassed rich client’s opulent residence brimming with rare Ming vases. The brats, much to the horror of the host, decided to play cricket in the drawing room. Mr B told their rather sheepish officer father that the brats could break as many vases as they liked, so long as he passed the desired order. Another consultant was a daredevil who would sign off, as auditor, any doctored accounts prepared by his client, provided the client contributed to the consultant’s pet charity. Yet a third eccentric consultant brazenly told the income tax officer that his Parsi client must have made a genuine mistake in the accounting, for a Parsi would never indulge in petty manipulation: ‘Sir, Parsi chori bhi karé to mottij chori karé (even if a Parsi cheats, he would do so only on a grand scale).”
Many a Parsi would tell his income tax officer with a straight face that we Parsis never believe in black money, and often get away with blue murder, such being the collective goodwill and reputation of our community. Few know that capital controls or foreign exchange laws did exist even before Independence. Before the much dreaded FERA (Foreign Exchange Regulation Act) of 1973, there was a 1947 version too. Decades ago a retired Parsi businessman proudly narrated to us as to how he sent as little as US$ 500 through hawala every week to build his nest egg in a Swiss bank. Another venerable gentleman of aristocratic lineage visited his bankers in Switzerland to deposit the cash component from the sale of his property and then flung his passport into the Arabian Sea so that his income tax officer would not notice the Swiss immigration stamp. He then proceeded to file a complaint with the police station that he (a forgetful old man) had again lost his passport. Some of the earliest NRIs (non-resident Indians) and naturalized foreign citizens were Parsis.
Most Parsis will fork up taxes to avoid any problems with the tax authorities though they believe that the taxes are being frittered away on wrong causes. This is in keeping with the Parsi DNA to comply with any law, however odious, unfair or inequitable. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes of the US Supreme Court memorably said in a dissenting judgment: "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. I like paying taxes. With taxes, I buy civilization.” Most bawajis will vehemently disagree with the learned judge and dub him as "sadantar ghelsappo (total idiot)” or its unprintable more stringent cousin in abuse.