Budget 2013 - India

Mr. P Chidambaram, the Finance Minister of India, presenting the budget 2013 on February 28, 2013. The main highlights of the budget for the common man are as follows:

• Implementation of DTC again deferred
• First home loan of up to Rs 25 lacs will get an additional Rs 1 lac interest deduction
• Income Tax Sops on the equity investments under Rajiv Gandhi Equity savings scheme extended to Mutual Funds
• Income level raised to Rs 12 lacs from Rs 10 lacs for Rs 50,000 exemption for the individuals under RGESS
• No changes in Income Tax rates or slabs
• Rs 2,000 credit for those earning up to Rs 5 lacs per annum
• Super rich tax: 10% surcharge on income above Rs 1 cr
• DDT surcharge raised to 10% from 5%
• TDS at 1% of land deals over 50 lacs
• To reduce STT on equity futures, MF units - STT reduced from 0.17% to 0.1%.
•  Cigarettes and SUVs will get costlier
• Custom duty on imported motor vehicles hiked to 100% from 75%
• Mobile phones, priced above Rs 2,000 will get more expensive
• To exempt vocational courses, testing services from Service Tax net
• Gold duty free limit raised to Rs 50,000 for men and to Rs 1 lac for women travelers
• Service tax to be imposed on all AC restaurants

 To summarize, it is clear that there was nothing to offer for a common middle class Indian.
 
  

Budget 2012 - India

Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister of India, presented the budget 2012 on March 16th, 2012. The main highlights of the budget for the common man are as follows:

• Implementation of DTC deferred.
• Income Tax Sops on the equity investments under Rajiv Gandhi Equity savings scheme on 50K for the individuals having income below Rs 10 lakh.
• Income Tax exemption limit hiked to Rs 2 lakh from the existing Rs 1.8 lakh.  
• Income from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh to be taxed at 10 per cent, from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh at 20%.
• Income above Rs 10 lakh to taxed at 30%. 
• Health insurance deduction up to Rs 5,000 for preventive health checkup within the existing limit of Rs. 15,000/-. 
• Senior citizens to be exempt from advance tax payments.
• STT (Security Transaction Tax) cut from 0.125% to 0.1%.
• Interest income from banks will be tax-free up to Rs 10,000.
• Service tax net widened; to include most sectors but Govt services, education, entertainment, public transport exempted from service tax.
• Propose to hike service tax rate from 10% to 12%.
• Sale of residential property exempted from capital gains if invested in equity or equipment of an SME. 
• Large cars duty raised from 22% to 24%.
• Solar power lamps, LED bulbs to become cheaper.
• Iodised salt, match-boxes, soya products to become cheaper.
• Big cars, ACs, refrigerators, phone bills, restaurant bills set to become more expensive.
• LCD, LED TVs to become cheaper.
• Cigarettes, gold, diamonds to cost more.