Income Tax
·
Tax
collection up 15%
Income Tax proposals:
·
Personal
Income Tax slabs for individuals relaxed
·
Exemption
limit enhanced from Rs 1.8 lakh to Rs 2 lakh
·
Upper
limit of 20% tax raised from Rs 8 lakh to Rs 10 lakh
New Slabs as follows:
·
Upto Rs
2 lakh - Nil
·
Rs 2-5
lakh - 10%
·
Rs 5–10
lakh – 20%
·
Above
Rs 10 lakh – 30%
·
Interest
from savings account up to Rs 10,000 to be exempt from tax
·
In
addition to medical insurance, an additional Rs 5000 to be exempted for
preventive health check-ups
·
Senior
Citizens exempted from filing advance tax
·
Compulsory
reporting of assets sold abroad
Corporate Tax
·
Corporate
Tax structure left unchanged
·
Withholding
tax on certain overseas borrowings reduced to 5% from 20%
·
Cuts
securities transaction tax by 20% for stock market orders
Service Tax
·
Service
Tax rates raised from 10% to 12%
·
To
bring more businesses under Service Tax net; only 17 services exempted now
·
Higher
Service Tax to add Rs 186.6 bn in revenue
·
Changes
in direct taxes to result in revenue loss of Rs 45 bn
·
Government
services, public transport exempted from services tax
·
Standard
excise rate hiked to 12% from 10%
Other Budget Highlights
·
GDP to
grow by 6.9% in 2011-12
·
This
year’s performance disappointing
·
India
still among front runners in economic growth
·
Monetary
policy was geared towards containing inflation
·
Need to
improve supply side of economy
·
Exports
grew 23 %
·
Imports
grew 29%
·
Past
year was supposed to be year of recovery
·
To keep
subsidies under 2% of GDP over next 3 years
·
We were
facing several challenges; global situation a dampener
·
Industry
pulled down growth in past two years.
