10 things to expect from Budget 2016
Arun Jaitley will present his Union Budget before the Parliament on Monday, February 29, 2016
A lot is expected from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the run-up to his third Union Budget. Here are some measures we think he will announce:
1. A strong dose of public spending in infrastructure to compensate for poor private sector investment (he may do this even at the cost of fiscal consolidation)
2. Measures to boost consumption through 7th Pay Commission payout and direct tax concessions (expect tax exemption limit for salaried people to increase and a few more sops)
3. Large allocation for PSU bank re-capitalisation and some direction on furthering the banking sector reforms
4. Lower corporate tax rates with simultaneous weeding out of deductions/rebates. Dividend distribution tax may go
5. Fresh impetus to divestment (he needs that revenue for sure)
6.Actions to ease the rural distress (or NDA can kiss rural votes goodbye in the forthcoming state assembly elections)
7. Steps to encourage long term financial instruments (for instance: long term capital gains with respect to stocks may be increased to three years from present 12 months and stock market won’t like it for sure)
8. Strong social sector spending (Modi government faced flak in last year’s budget for ignoring this sector..they are unlikely to repeat that mistake)
9. Large funding towards fostering entrepreneurship (after all, the tall promises made while launching Start-up India needs to be funded)
10. Service Tax rates will be increased across the board to bring it closer to GST rate level (Be prepared to shell out more for almost everything that we do in our day to day life)
