Budget 2018 : No change in I-T exemption for individuals

New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Union Budget 2018, the last budget, of Narendra Modi led-NDA government.

Continuing with the trend from last year, the Railways Budget was included in the General Budget.

While the nation was expecting some changes in the income tax slabs, the Budget has made it clear that no change in Income Tax exemption for individuals will be provided.

Budget presented by the FM:

The Budget agenda:

• To work with states to provide more resources to improve quality of education.
• The Budget focuses on agriculture and rural economy, health, infra, senior citizen.

Farmers' benefit:

• From Rs 10 lakh crore to Rs 11 lakh crore credit for agricultural activities.
• Rs 500 crore for Operation Green.
• Government proposes to launch 'Operation Greens' on the lines of Operation Flood.
• Propose launch of a restructure national bamboo mission with Rs 1200 crore,10,000 crore has been allocated to fisheries and animal husbandry sector.
• Proposed to raise institutional credit for agriculture to Rs 11 Lakh Crore for 2018-19.
• Agri-Market Development Fund with a corpus of 2000 crore to be set up for developing agricultural markets.
• 470 Agriculture Produce Market Committees have been connected to #eNAM network, the rest to be connected by March 2018.
• Rural infra, livelihood expenditure to be Rs 14.34 lakh cr in 2018-19.

Rural Sectors:

• Rs 14.34 lakh crore to be spent for rural infrastructure.
• Four crore electricity connections to the poor under Saubhagya Yojana.
• Government plans to construct 2 crore more toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission.
• Target of Rs 3 lakh cr for lending under PM MUDRA Yojana in 2018-19.
• Mass formalisation of MSME sector is happening after demonetisation and GST.
• Five lakh Wi-Fi hotspots to be set up in rural areas to provide easy internet access.

Girl child and women:

• Government proposes to increase the target of providing free LPG connections to 8 crore to poor women.

Education and Youth:

Health Industry:

• Rs 1,200 cr proposed for free essential drugs.
• National Health Scheme to provide Rs 5 lakh cover to 10 crore families.

Indian Railways:

• Rs 1,48,528 cr capital expenditure for Indian Railways for 2018-19.
• 12,000 wagons, 5,160 coaches and 700 locomotives are being procured for the railways.
• Rs 17,000 crore allocated for Bengaluru Metro. Rs. 11,000 crore allocated for Mumbai rail network.
• 4,267 unmanned level crossings will be eliminated in the next two years.
• All railway stations and trains will have WiFi and 150 km of additional suburban corridors is being planned.

Financial sectors:

• Centre to contribute 12 per cent of wages to new employees under EPF.
• Every business enterprise to be provided with unique ID.
• NITI Aayog will establish a National Programme to direct efforts in the area of Artificial Intelligence towards national development.
• Government insurance companies to be merged into a single entity, and subsequently listed in the stock exchange, as part of the disinvestment programme.

Fiscal Deficit:

• Projected fiscal deficit for 2018-19 is 3.3 per cent of GDP.

Taxation:

• No change in I-T exemption for individuals.
• Tax payer base has risen from 6.47 crore in 2014-15 to 8.27 crore in 2016-17.
• Long-term capital gains tax at 10 per cent for gains exceeding Rs 1 lakh.
• For senior citizens, exemption of interest income on bank deposits raised to Rs 50,000.

More tax reforms:

• Propose 100 per cent tax rebate for farmer producer companies having a turnover of Rs. 100 crore.
• 12.6 per cent growth in direct taxes in 2017-18; 18.7 per cent growth in indirect taxes in 2017-18.
• Companies with turnover of upto Rs 250 crore to be taxed at 25 per cent.
• Customs duty on mobile phones hiked to 20 per cent from 15 per cent.
• Standard deduction of Rs 40,000 for salaried employees in lieu of transport and medical expenses.

• Proposed two defence industrial corridors in the country to promote domestic production in both public and private sectors.

Political funding:

• MPs' emoluments to be revised every 5 years index to inflation.
• Revised emoluments for President - Rs 5 lakh, Vice President - Rs 4 lakh and Governors - Rs 3.5 lakh.