Budget highlights: Rs 3,000 relief for taxpayers earning below Rs 5 lakh
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday present the national budget for the next fiscal in the Lok Sabha on amid concerns over the country’s stagnating growth rate, government deficit and direction of reforms.
A 1 hour, 40 minutes long presentation came to an end with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley adhering to the fiscal consolidation roadmap by proposing to keep the deficit at 3.5 per cent of GDP in 2016-17.
Jaitley proposed a pro-poor, pro-make in India budget and exempted start-ups from income tax for 3 years . Income tax slabs for taxpayers remained unchanged.
Read more: Budget 2016 live blog
Nine pillars of the Budget
Governance, ease of doing business, fiscal discipline, tax reforms, Agriculture and farmers welfare , Rural sector with focus on employment , social sector with healthcare , Educational skills and job creation , Infrastrucuture and investment and financial sector reforms are the nine pillars on which the budget has been prepared.
Tax rebate: Relief of Rs 3000 per year to taxpayers with income below Rs.5 Lakh per year;1 cr tax payers to benefit
For tax payers earning below Rs 5 lakh, ceiling on tax rebate has been increased by Rs 3,000.
FM also provided relief to those living in rented houses by raising the HRA deduction from Rs 24,000 to Rs 60,000 under Section 88G.
Corporate tax
New firms from March 1 2016 to be taxed at 25% plus cess plus surcharge. No further exemptions for new companies if taxed at the 25% rate
Start-ups:
Start-ups to get 100% tax exemption for 3 years except MAT
Health insurance
Jaitley also announced a a new health protection scheme with health cover up to Rs 1 lakh per family .
LPG:
On LPG, Jaitley said 75 lakh middle class and lower middle class have given up subsidies
Govt to provide LPG connections to women of 1.5 cr BPL households at a cost of Rs 2, 000 crore in 2016-17
Customs and excise duty
Suitable changes to be made in customs and excise duty rates to boost Make In India
Here are the highlights of Budget 2016
Tax reforms: No changes have been made to existing income tax slabs
HRA allowance increased: Announcing tax reforms, FM Jaitley increased the HRA deduction amount from Rs 24,000 per annum to Rs 60,000 per annum
More than 2 crore tax payers will get relief of Rs 3,000 after Jaitley said that tax ceiling has been raised from 2000 to 5000 rupees for those earning less than Rs 5 lakh
Home buyers: First time home buyers get additional Rs 50,000 deduction for houses upto Rs 50 lakh, loan up to Rs 35 lakh
Tax on the rich
From now on a 15 % -surcharge on income tax for those with incomes exceeding 1 crore per annum. This surcharge was 12 percent until now.
Tax on cars:
Govt to levy 1 % infra cess on small cars, 2.5 % on diesel and 4 percent of SUVs for anti pollution
Housing
Service tax exempted for housing construction of houses less than 60 square metres
Cigarettes
Excise duty on tobacco increased by 10-15%, except for beedi
Organic farming
# Organic farming to get a big push : Govt will reorient its intervention in the farm and non farm sector to double the income of farmers by 2022. 5 lakh acres to be brought under organic farming over a three-year period
#Govt to provide LPG connections to women of 1.5 cr BPL households at a cost of Rs 2, 000 crore in 2016-17
# Rs 500 cr for Stand Up India to promote entrepreneurship for SC, ST, women
EPFO
#The govt will pay EPF contribution of 8.33% for all new employees for 1st three year
#Services provided by #EPFO exempted from service tax
3,000 new drug stores, dialysis centres to come up
The government will set up 3,000 new generic medicine stores across the country to tackle the shortage of drugs in rural areas.
Jaitley also announced the launch of a National Dialysis Programme to address the high costs involved in the renal dialysis processes.
Under the programme every district hospital will have the facilities of renal dialysis, so that people do not have to travel to the expensive hospitals of metro cities, he said.
At least 2,000 new dialysis centres will be started in the country under the programme.
Recue loan burden of farmers
# To recue loan burden to farmers, govt allocates Rs 15,000 crore
Aadhaar
# Aadhaar bill will be introduced in this session of Parliament. Aadhar will accurately target beneficiaries,DBT on pilot district for fertilizer, said Jaitley
Recapitalisation of banks
# Rs 25,000 crore set aside for recapitalization of public sector banks
Motor Vehicles Act
# Motor Vehicles Act to be amended. Entrepreneurs will be able to operate public transport
Electrification of villages
# Govt is committed to 100% electrification by 1 May, 2018. 542 villages will be covered in Feb 2016. This is more than the total combined achievement of previous three years.
Health
# Health protection scheme up to Rs 1 lakh; additional package of Rs 30000 for senior citizens . The scheme will provide Rs 1 lakh to each family.
Infra, rural expenditure
# Govt to increase expenditure on infra, rural development and bank recapitalization
#3 main priorities for the government are: Prudent fiscal policy, raising domestic demand and carrying out reforms
Agenda for next year
Agriculture and farmer welfare, rural employment and infra, healthcare to cover welfare services, job creation, investment, financial sector reforms, governance and ease of doing business, fiscal discipline, tax reforms to reduce compliance burden
3 major schemes for social sector:
farmer insurance, Health insurance and cooking gas subsidy for BPL
Forex reserves at highest-ever level
#India’s foreign exchange reserves are at its highest ever level at $350 billion
# Growth of GDP has accelerated to 7.6%
# CPI inflation has come down to 5.4% from 9 plus, bringing big relief to the public