Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday raised the income tax exemption limits in his Union Budget 2009-2010 speech. He proposed to increase the income tax exemption limit for senior citizens by Rs 15,000, for women and others by Rs10,000 each, while keeping the corporate tax rate unchanged. The exemption limit will now be Rs 240,000 for senior citizens, Rs190,000 for women and Rs 160,000 for others.The good news is that 10% surcharge on income above Rs 10,00,000 has been removed.
The most welcome change is the complete removal of the Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT). As the FBT provisions were felt to be too onerous and generated a huge administrative burden on corporates, there was a pressure to abolish the same.However, Minimum Allocation Tax (MAT) on book profits has been increased from 10 percent to 15 percent.Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee asked state governments to remove hurdles to speed-up infrastructure implementation and tried to bring liquidity back to the cash-strapped builders.
He also set a goal to increase the investment in infrastructure to more than 9 percent of GDP by 2014.Market tanked almost 950 points in sensex and 280 points in Nifty.
He also set a goal to increase the investment in infrastructure to more than 9 percent of GDP by 2014.Market tanked almost 950 points in sensex and 280 points in Nifty.
The government is committed to provide Rs 100 a day as wages under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) Allocations have been hiked by 144% to Rs.39,100 crore in the proposed Union Budget.The Finance Minister also said allocation for Bharat Nirman programme is being hiked by 45 per cent. The project covers six schemes, including rural roads, drinking water and sanitation in villages.
The finance minister said the government would soon publicise a draft food security (guarantee) bill and seek comments from everybody before finalising the bill. In its election manifesto earlier this year, the Congress had promised 25 kg of rice or wheat a month at Rs.3 per kg to families below the poverty line.
