Is the Union Budget 2014-2015 convincing?
Is the Union Budget 2014-2015 convincing?
The Finance Minister Arun Jaitely came up with the first NDA government led Union Budget 2014-2015 on Thursday, July 10, 2014. The finance minister pegged the fiscal deficit target for FY15 at 4.5% as compared to the fiscal deficit target of 4.1% given by former Finance Minister P Chidambaram. He also assured about trying the best to achieve the target of 4.1%. The fiscal deficit was its all time high of 5.7% in 2011-2012. Do you consider it as a convincing budget?
Yes
• The Finance Minister said that focus will stay on the measures to reduce the expenditure so as to bring down the fiscal deficit target.
• The budget brought happiness and relief for the middle class people by making in small changes in slew of tax breaks.
• Investors got the benefit of enhanced limit for PPF investment. The limit is increased to 1.5 lac from the previous limit of 1 lac.
• Consumers got special privileges in the form of reduced custom duty as well the excise duty. They can now carry free baggage allowance up to Rs 45000.
• The investment sectors like real estate, infrastructure received pass through status so as to avoid double tax.
• The focus will stay on three important factors inflation, unemployment and slow growth rate. The best part is the Fm didn’t announce any optimistic projections.
No
• As far as tax benefits are concerned, they were confined to the middle class as 10% surcharge was kept unchanged for the individuals with income over 1crore.
• There were some strict actions taken by government on tax front by hiking the tax rate for long term capital gains coming from listed mutual funds to 20%.
• The excise duty on the products like cigarettes, cigars, fizzy drinks, energy drinks etc that are popular among masses was hiked. The manufacturers will pass on the hike by increasing prices.
• Businessmen got disappointment when they heard the announcement about the retrospective amendment in matter of Indirect shares transfer. It was retained as it is in the budget.
• The union budget presented by the new NDA government was more or less in line with the welfarist budget of previous UPA government.
Conclusion
The Finance Minister hardly had any time to prepare a budget in a tough economic scenario. However, he smartly tackled the key issues by assuring the foreign investors as well as domestic investors that the tax system will reflect better transparency, predictability and stability. The government will be ready to solve the issues related to taxation. Overall, the budget was a mixed bag with realistic announcements that was what the people were looking for.
Discussion
- RE: Is the Union Budget 2014-2015 convincing? -Deepa Kaushik (07/14/14)
- The Union Budget was as expected a budget in line with the one presented by the previous UPA government. This seem to be a welfare budget to save their place for a long term and to have a good note in the minds of common man who form the bulk of the vote bank. Nothing much notable is there in this budget to call it a convincing one.
It has become a regular foul play of any and every government in India to increase the rates of the day-to-day requirements right from the basic need of milk, vegetables to gas, petrol, fuel and everything, and then go ahead with a budget without any evident hike. This is a simple game to make fool of common man projecting this to be a so-called welfare budget.
The only nice feature that I felt a bit good was the hike in excise duty on the products like cigarettes, cigars, and aerated drinks etc. which actually cause health concerns. Though government might aim to generate more revenue, but let’s hope a few to get rid of these with a monetary increase in the daily expenses.
To be precise, there is no special feature to call this as a convincing budget.
