Picture < Twitter / ANI
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman winded up her Budget speech after 2 hours 40 minutes, the longest ever by a finance minister. Here are the highlights of her remaining speech :
1. Allocation For Education : Rs 99,300 crore allocated for education sector, Rs 3,000 crore for skill development in FY21.Degree level full-fledged online education programme by institutions ranked in top 100 .
2. Mobile Manufacturing : Scheme focussed on encouraging manufacture of mobile phones, electronic equipment and semiconductor packaging to be introduced.
3. More Tejas : A proposal is under consideration for setting up large solar panel capacity alongside the railway tracks on land owned by railways. More Tejas type trains will connect iconic destinations.
4. Transport Infrastructure : Will Provide Rs 22000 crores to power and renewable energy sector in 2020-21. I propose to provide Rs 1.7 lakh crores for transport infrastructure in 2020-21, Rs 27,300 crore rupees for development of industry and commerce.
5. Private Sector For Data Centre Parks : To soon bring out a policy to enable private sector to build Data Centre Parks in the country.
6. Rs 8,000 crore over five years to be provided for quantum technologies and applications. Fibre to home connections under BharatNet will be provided to 1 lakh gram panchayats this year itself, and Rs 6000 crore has been provided for BharatNet. Will achieve seamless delivery of services through digital governance. National Logistics Policy will soon be released, creating single window
7. Senior Citizens : Enhance allocation of Rs 9500 crores for senior citizens and ‘Divyang’.
I propose to provide Rs 35,600 crores for nutrition related programmes for 2020-21.
8. 5 Iconic Sites For Tourism : I propose to provide Rs 2500 crores for promotion of tourism in the year 2020-21. Five archaeological sites to be developed as iconic sites with on-site museums — Rakhigarhi, Hastinapur, Shivsagar, Dholavira and Adichanallur.
9. Govt allocates Rs 3,150 cr for ministry of culture, Rs 2,500 cr for ministry of tourism.
Rs 85,000 crore rupees allotted for Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes in 2020-21, and Rs 53,700 crore rupees for Scheduled Tribes.
10. Tax Payer Charter : We wish to enshrine in the statutes a taxpayer charter through this Budget.
Our govt remains committed to taking measures to ensure that our taxpayers are free from tax harassment of any kind.
11. Bank deposit insurance hiked to Rs 5 lakh : In the wake of banks going under, government has announced that the bank depositors insurance, which currently stands at Rs 1 lakh, has been enhanced to Rs 5 lakh.
12 . Govt pension trust to be separated from PFRDA : Balance govt holding in IDBI Bank to be sold to private retail investors.Government proposes amendments to facilitate the separation of government pension trust from PFRDA.
13. Selling Part of LIC Stake : Government proposes to sell a part of its holding in LIC by initial public offer. Certain govt securities will be open for foreign investors. Govt proposes to increase investment limit of FPIs in corporate bonds.
14. Fiscal deficit pegged at 3.8 pc in current fiscal and 3.5 pc in next.
15. Around 70 of more than 100 income tax deductions and exemptions have been removed, in order to simplify tax system and lower tax rates.
16. Relief for interest payment to NRIs : Concessional withholding rate of 5 pc on interest payment to non-residents extended up to June 30, 2022.
17. Personal Income Tax Regime : propose to bring a personal income tax regime, where income tax rates will be reduced, so now, person earning between Rs 5-7.5 lakhs will be required to pay tax at 10% against current 20%.
18. A person earning Rs 15 lakh per annum and not availing any deductions will now pay Rs 1.95 lakh tax in place of Rs 2.73 lakh
19. Tax holiday on affordable housing extended by one year: In order to promote affordable housing projects, I propose to extend date of approval of affordable housing projects for availing tax holiday by one more year.
20. Coop societies get tax relief : Option to be provided to cooperative societies to be taxed at 22% plus 10% surcharge and 4% cess, with no exemptions or deductions. Cooperative socieities to be exempted also from Minimum Alternative Tax.
21. Income of charitable institutions fully tax-exempt : Income of charitable institutions fully exempt from taxation; Donation to such institutions allowed as deduction in computing taxable income of donor
22. Turnover limit for start-ups to hiked to Rs 100 cr
23. Allotment of PAN : To further ease process of allotment of PAN. Govt to launch system for instant allotment of PAN on basis of Aadhaar
24 : Threshold of MSMEs’ audit raised to Rs 5 crore : Turnover threshold for audit of MSMEs to be increased from Rs 1 crore to Rs 5 crore, to those businesses which carry out less than 5% of their business in cash.
25. ‘Vivad se Vishwas’ scheme for direct tax payers whose appeals are pending at various forums.taxpayer to pay only amount of disputed tax, will get complete waiver on interest and penalty, if scheme is availed by March 31, 2020
26. Income Tax rates for earning up to Rs 15 lakh have been slashed and no tax will be applied on earnings up to Rs 5 lakh, but no exemptions will be allowed if the tax payer opts for the new rates, she said in the Budget speech.
27 : New Income Tax Slabs : New income tax slabs
0 – 2.5 lakh – exempted
₹2.5 lakh – ₹5 lakh – 5%
₹5 lakh – ₹7.5 lakh – 10% (20% earlier)
₹7.5 lakh – ₹10 lakh – 15% (20% earlier)
₹10 lakh to ₹12.5 lakh – 20% (30% earlier)
₹12.5 lakh – ₹15 lakh – 25% (30% earlier)
No change in tax rates above ₹15 lakh
28. Propose to impose a nominal health cess on imports of medical equipment.
29. Customs duty on footwear, furniture raised.
30. Defence Gets A Boost : The defence pension budget goes up to Rs 1.33 lakh crore from Rs 1.17 lakh crore allocated last year. The hike in defence pension budget is more than the hike given in revenue and capital funds for defence.For modernisation and buying new weapon systems, defence forces allocated Rs 1,10,734 crore which is Rs 10, 340 more than what was provided in last year’s budget.
31. Registration of charity institutions to be made completely electronic, donations made to be pre-filled in IT return form to claim exemptions for donations easily
