Each decision a reform in its own right: Jaitley on Budget

Media Konnect founder and CEO Ranjit Thakur said, “After being overlooked for nearly two years, the media & entertainment industry has finally come to the fore in this Union Budget”. The 15 percent surcharge on income above Rs 1 crore will continue.

The Budget proposes to introduce a simple one-page income tax return for individuals with taxable income (other than business income) of up to INR500,000.

He has instead cut tax rates for micro, small, and medium scale enterprises with annual turnover up to Rs 50 crore. India is pushing a new model investment treaty that excludes tax issues and specifies that foreign investors must exhaust all domestic legal remedies in disputes before they can seek redress from global tribunals.

No big tax changes have been made on the indirect tax front in the wake of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), except to the extent of incentivising the digitising efforts in the form of tax breaks for digital machines and their parts imported as well as produced domestically.

He also abolished income tax for people earning up to 300,000 rupees ($4,410) a year. The government also intends to increase the share of capital expenditure.

He said, “In the road sector I have stepped up the budget allocation for the National Highways from Rs 57,676 crore in the BE of 2016-17 to Rs 64,000 crore in 2017-18”.

The finance minister, however, has delivered a well-balanced Budget between fiscal prudence and stimulus, perhaps the most hard one in recent times.

Affordable housing developers will also be eligible for government’s incentives, tax benefits and institutional funding, they said. From the Centre’s perspective, the revenue forgone estimate for this measure is expected to be Rs 7,200 crore per annum.

Appeal to all citizens of India to contribute to nation building by making a small payment of 5 percent tax if their income is falling in the lowest slab of 2.5 lakh to 5 lakh.

I will use the television style sheet by starting with my rating, of the budget.

He had in his Budget for 2017-18 proposed a levy of 10% surcharge, on top of the peak rate of tax, on individuals with income between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore annually. “In order to prevent duplication of benefit, the existing benefit of rebate available to them is being reduced to Rs2,500 available only to assessees up to income of Rs3.5 lakh”. “Demonetisation. seeks to create a new normal wherein the GDP will be bigger, cleaner and real”, he said, adding the impact of demonetisation would not “spill over to the next year”.

Jaitley justified his decision to rollback tax rebates on buying of second property, stating that those who can afford two homes can certainly afford to pay taxes.

In the current fiscal year actual military expenditure is expected to be Rs. 3.45 trillion, after the government injected additional funds due to last fall’s war crisis with Pakistan. The western credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s, for example, called on the government to stick to the plan announced in previous budgets to limit the fiscal deficit for 2017-18 to no more than 3 percent of India’s GDP. Nevertheless, I am happy that the fiscal deficit is maintained at 3.2 per cent.

Huge hike in spending on rural India and 35 per cent increase in allocation for Dalits point to welfare as a steering principle of the budget.

This year’s Budget is seen as a revival Budget for domestic investment that is threatening to turn turtle, by economic expert Rajiv Kumar.