The government has put off by one month the levy of an additional Rs 2 per litre excise duty on petrol and diesel that is not doped with ethanol and bio-diesel in a bid to give the industry more time to implement the measure.
The deduction is in case of senior citizen is Rs 60,000.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday criticized the Union Budget 2012-13 saying it has "dampened" economic sentiments as almost all services have been brought under tax ambit.
Congress MP Ghulam Nabi Azad during his retirement speech in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday summed up his more than four-decade-old political career in few Urdu couplets and a brief speech.
If 2019-20 (FY20) was an unusual year for highway construction in India, with the pace of work slowing down for the first time since the Narendra Modi government assumed power in 2014, largely due to the general elections in May and liquidity crunch, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 (FY21) only made matters worse with lockdowns and labour unavailability. The pace of highway construction in 2021-22 (FY22) has not been able to bulldoze the pandemic barriers in a year marred by two Covid-19 waves - the second at the start of the fiscal year, the third towards the close. With localised lockdowns and restrictions on mobility, highway construction growth in the country has now fallen to a five-year low.
The fiscal deficit in current fiscal has been estimated at 3.9%.
The Budget for 2018-19 has at least five takeaways that are yet to receive adequate attention, says A K Bhattacharya.
"Religious festivals seem to have become occasions to intimidate and bully others -- a far cry from when they were occasions for joy and celebration. Instead, there is intimidation and discrimination only on account of their religion, food, caste, gender or language," Gandhi said.
Indian Railways said it would rope in home-grown talent to develop world-class stations as foreign consultants were charging exorbitant fees.
In his Budget speech, the finance minister said: "We propose to facilitate higher investment in affordable housing. Affordable housing will now be given infrastructure status, which will enable these projects to avail the associated benefits."
FM's decision to make PAN card a neccessity for financial transactions has worried life insurers, who will find it difficult to tap rural India with this requirement.
Asked about the BJP's claim that its performance in southern states will be exemplary, Tharoor said, "The claim of an 'exemplary' performance is yet another product of the BJP's propaganda mill."
Replying to the debate in Lok Sabha on Motion of Thanks to President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the Parliament, Modi said the Congress' 'arrogance' has not gone away despite multiple electoral defeats and its 'misdeeds' seem to indicate that it has made up its mind not to come to power for the next 100 years.
A good tax system should minimise the cost of collection, compliance cost and the cost to the economy in terms of the distortions it creates while generating revenues.
The calculator, with a comparative table to compare taxes in the old and the new tax regime, for resident individuals (financial year 2020-21) has been hosted on the official e-filing website of the department -- https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in.
'The finance ministry's decision to accept the deficit target of 4.5 per cent in 2025-2026 appears to have emanated from its endorsement of the Finance Commission's view that the Indian economy will continue to remain impacted by the pandemic, adversely undermining its growth potential,' notes A K Bhattacharya.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced that income from digital asset transfers will be taxed at a rate of 30 per cent. This move is seen as 'crypto tax'.
A person in the 30% income tax bracket with a Rs 40 lakh home loan at 9% interest rate would, under the Rs 3.5 lakh interest exemption, will save Rs 105,000 in tax in the first year, against Rs 60,000 under the previous interest exemption of Rs 2 lakh.
To attract capital into infrastructure projects, the ratings system needs a fresh look.
Jaitley has managed the difficult feat of sticking to the fiscal correction.
The newly appointed Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee took charge of his new office in north block, returning to it after a gap of 24 years. The Finance Ministry office, which has been sealed off to outsiders and particularly prying journalists with the vote-on-account preparations in full swing, was on Thursday opened up at 4 p.m. when the media was invited in to cover the taking over ceremony.
This move will enable it to incur higher-than-mandated borrowing, and possibly spending, till the 2024 Lok Sabha election cycle.
The Budget oration of the finance minister and the confidence with which she delivered it, along with the measures and the recent upsurge in the economy would all contribute to unleashing the storied 'animal spirits' and help the economy run on the growth path quite smoothly. Or so the government hopes, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
Gandhi, who is usually flanked by senior party colleagues, was also greeted by both President Droupadi Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Budget-makers in North Block are looking to maintain this fiscal status quo, in spite of tax revenues nowhere close to where the government wants and in spite of possible higher expenditure commitments.
Our country needs massive investment in access of Rs 50 lakh crore in infrastructure to increase growth of GDP and integrate the nation with a network of roads, airports, railways, inland water and to provide good quality services to the people: FM
When the entire Opposition walked out of Parliament, protesting against the move to raise excise duty on diesel and petrol by Re 1 per litre, the politics over the Budget began even before Pranab Mukherjee could complete his important speech.
If the finance minister's tax proposals have stimulated demand at all, it's for CAs, notes Kanika Datta.
This will incentivise employers to recruit unemployed persons and also bring into books the informal employees.
Opposition said saying it lacked vision and road map to execute ideas.
The PMO should also present an annual report, on the state of politics and society
The new system is expected to give emphasis on various in-built credit enhancement structures.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said the interest of all employees of state-owned banks which are likely to be privatised will be protected, even as bank unions observed a two-day strike against the government's privatisation decision. Replying to a query during a press conference, she clarified that public sector presence will continue in the banking space. "...we have announced public enterprise policy based on which we have identified those four areas in which we said government presence, public sector presence will be there, and bare minimum presence is what we have said, in that financial institutions are also there. "Meaning, even in financial sector we will still have the presence of public sector enterprise...not all of them are going to be privatised," she said.
The minister also exempted components from taxes to encourage domestic manufacturing of these devices.
The industry's reactions to the Budget have been mixed.
'The people of Tamil Nadu in particular Chennai know about the double standards of the BJP. Nothing will work for them here.'
There's a 13 per cent increase over last year, in an effort to put its flagging revenues back on track.
REITs, a new investment avenue in India on the lines of one in developed markets like the US, UK, Japan.
Some of the policy measures announced are expected to go a long way in removing current challenges on financing faced by businesses and also increasing economic activity, especially in areas of construction and manufacturing.
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