Jubilee Post News & Views
Jubilee News Desk
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has presented the Union Budget 2021-22 in Parliament on Monday.
Apart from the taxation reforms an increased spending on healthcare with Rs 35,000 crore on Covid-19 vaccine development were highlight of the budget presentation.
Sitharaman announced the scrapping of income tax for senior citizens under certain conditions, new rules for removal of double taxation for NRIs, and a reduction in the time period of tax assessments among other measures.
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Startups will get an extension in their tax holiday for an additional year. At the conclusion of her speech, Sensex was at 47451.62, up 1165.85 points.
The budget got reactions from different parties including the opposition Mamata Banerjee termed budget “anti-people.” She said the BJP talks about nationalism, but in practice, they are the ones who are selling nation’s resources to the private players.
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Budget is a let down like never before. It will unravel like previous one sooner than you think, said Congress leader P Chidambaram.
The TMC had stated the budget was 100 per cent “visionless” and its theme was “sell India”. The remarks came after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman read out the Union Budget speech in the Lok Sabha.
“India’s first paperless budget is also a 100% visionless budget. Theme of the fake budget is Sell India!” TMC spokesperson Derek O’Brien said.
In her speech, Sitharaman announced that India’s fiscal deficit is set to jump to 9.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product in 2020-21 as per Revised Estimates. This is sharply higher than 3.5 per cent of GDP that was projected in the Budget Estimates.
Budget highlights
# The allocation to healthcare in this budget has been increased. The areas of focus will be preventive and curative healthcare as well as well being. The allocation is likely to be around Rs 2,23,846 crore, a 137% percentage rise from the previous budget. Rs 35,000 cr has been budgeted for COVID-19 vaccination expenditure in FY22.
# Sitharaman pegged FY21 fiscal deficit at 9.5% of GDP, with FY22 fiscal deficit target at 6.8% of GDP. Hope to get to back to fiscal consolidation path by FY26. Fiscal deficit will reach below 4.5% by FY26.
# FY22 capital expenditure provided is up 34.5% (vs FY21 BE) at Rs 5.54 lakh crore, said the Finance Minister.
# Government has left direct taxes unchanged, but took steps in direct tax incentives to ease compliance for taxpayers. FM proposed making it so that advance tax liability on dividend income shall arise only after payment of dividend.
# No tax filing for seniors above 75 with only pension, interest income.
