India, Aug. 28 -- When you buy a multi-crore apartment, how much of that price actually goes into the state's pocket as taxes and levies? 25 percent? 35 percent? Or 40 percent? I recently made a video explainer about this, saying the government pockets 25% or more of the total cost in taxes and levies. The comments section exploded. Viewers said I was being way too conservative.

As one commenter rightly pointed out, each of the construction materials which go into making the project, also has a GST levy on them (cement as high as 28%!). Then there's the "graft money", the unstated, sums developers have to pay get project approvals and permissions. When you add it all up, it's not 25%, it's closer to 30% or even 40% of your hard-earned mo...