Who would have thought that a theatre person will come up with a brilliant tax planning idea? In Spain, the taxes for watching a play in a theatre was increased 3 fold to 21%. This has put all those in the theatre industry at risk as no one will watch a play paying so much. While shopping for carrots, one theatre person realised that the tax on carrots was 4%. So, what he has done is that anyone willing to pay Euro 13 for a carrot gets a theatre ticket free.
This is not the first time I have heard of such stories. Back in the 1970s, India charged very high rates of customs duty for importing steel. One business house is said to have imported thousands of tonnes of chemicals that had very low margins. People were wondering why this was happening and it took them few years to realise that these chemicals were being imported in steel containers for which the customs duty was lower. So, the company was making a killing importing steel cheap and selling at very high domestic prices.
There are, of course, so many other stories of people, business-houses, audit firms, etc. coming up with different ways of circumventing tax provisions - or what we call as "tax planning".
All these show the human ingenuity when it means coming up with something new when it impacts us personally. If only we could use this focus on innovation in our daily work lives?
I was wondering why this does not happen? Should every company come up with new rules everyday (similar to tax laws) so that we can get the creative juices to flow? Or is just that there is no "Whats in it for me (WIIFM)?" factor involved...or are we so conditioned by our thought processes (maybe due to the education system just taking away our curiosity) that we refuse to think through our jobs? It could also be that we are doing the same job for so many years that we refuse to think out of the box.
Apart from the WIIFM factor, I also believe that when there is change in the environment, it gets us to think more. It goes back to the "comfort zone" post that I did earlier. Operating outside of our comfort zones help us to innovate and think through our jobs differently. Though this can be frustrating at the beginning, it really gets the best out of us.
I remember that whenever I moved to a new role or had role expansions, the first few months would not be easy as I would take my time to learn the role and also settle in to the expectations of the new role. However, it was during these periods of time that made me think hard on what needs to be done, how these need to be done and how do I go about making things happen in the role. It also got me not only to do different things but do the same things differently.
We also stop innovating or thinking through our roles if we don't have good objectives to pursue. Personally, I prefer to write up my own objectives and take on few things that are very challenging every year. This helps in stretching me, gets the best out of me and makes me think through the job/role better. I notice that many wait for objectives to be set or just set objectives the same as previous years with some incremental improvements. Whilst this makes our roles easy to go through, it really does not set us up for success in the long run.
One of my managers used to say, "We are all rebels..if we scratch the surface, the rebel in us will come out." This is very true...any change that impacts us personally gets us all fired up (or worked up) and thinking. The change brings out the best (or the worst) in us but definitely gets us thinking hard. This change has caused a new paradigm or a necessity for each of us and, therefore, the need to invent. Tax laws are similar. Any impact to us will get us thinking hard. So, while necessity brings out inventions, so do our tax laws!!!
Apart from the WIIFM factor, I also believe that when there is change in the environment, it gets us to think more. It goes back to the "comfort zone" post that I did earlier. Operating outside of our comfort zones help us to innovate and think through our jobs differently. Though this can be frustrating at the beginning, it really gets the best out of us.
I remember that whenever I moved to a new role or had role expansions, the first few months would not be easy as I would take my time to learn the role and also settle in to the expectations of the new role. However, it was during these periods of time that made me think hard on what needs to be done, how these need to be done and how do I go about making things happen in the role. It also got me not only to do different things but do the same things differently.
We also stop innovating or thinking through our roles if we don't have good objectives to pursue. Personally, I prefer to write up my own objectives and take on few things that are very challenging every year. This helps in stretching me, gets the best out of me and makes me think through the job/role better. I notice that many wait for objectives to be set or just set objectives the same as previous years with some incremental improvements. Whilst this makes our roles easy to go through, it really does not set us up for success in the long run.
One of my managers used to say, "We are all rebels..if we scratch the surface, the rebel in us will come out." This is very true...any change that impacts us personally gets us all fired up (or worked up) and thinking. The change brings out the best (or the worst) in us but definitely gets us thinking hard. This change has caused a new paradigm or a necessity for each of us and, therefore, the need to invent. Tax laws are similar. Any impact to us will get us thinking hard. So, while necessity brings out inventions, so do our tax laws!!!
Very aptly said. I've been able to do this consistently because of the inherent fire. Accepting Change as a natural phenomenon and Be the change you want to see has helped a great deal in bringing new and different thinking to work.
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