Taxation:
- No tax for individuals with taxable income less than Rs 5 lakh p.a. after making all deductions and investments under Section 80C, however there is no change for individuals with a taxable income exceeding Rs 5 Lakh.
- Limit for standard deductions increased to Rs 50,000 from Rs 40,000 for salaried class
- Benefit of rollover of capital tax gains increased from one residential house to two houses upto the maximum amount of Rs 2 crore and can be exercised once in a lifetime
- Income Tax returns to be processed within 24 hours and proposed that the returns will be paid immediately in coming years
- TDS threshold for home rent increased from Rs 1.8 lakh to 2.4 lakh
- TDS threshold for interest income in post offices and banks increased from Rs 10,000 to 40,000
- No Tax applicable on notional rent for second self-occupied house.
- Within nearly two years, almost all assessment and verification of IT returns will be done electronically by an anonymized tax system without any intervention by officials
Agriculture & Rural sector:
- Assured income support of Rs 6,000 per year in three equal instalments for small and marginal farmers with upto 2 hectares of land .The scheme will be effective from December 1, 2018. Govt to allocate Rs 75,000 crore for this scheme
- Farmers affected by natural calamities to get 2% interest subvention and additional 3% interest subvention upon timely repayment. Additional 2% interest subvention will be given to farmers who pursue animal husbandry, fisheries jobs through Kisaan credit cards
- Budgetary allocation of Rs19,000 crore for construction of rural roads under Gram Sadak yojana in 2019-20
- Rs 60,000 crore has been allocated by the government for MNREGA scheme
Benefits for workers:
- New social security coverage scheme for workers in unorganized sector
- Assured monthly pension of Rs 3,000 rupees per month, with contribution of 100 rupees per month, for workers in unorganized sector after 60 years of age
- Scheme to benefit 10 crore workers in unorganized sector, may become the world’s biggest pension scheme for unorganized sector in five years
- Gratuity limit increased for workers to Rs 30 lakh
- Bonus will be applicable for workers earning Rs 21,000 monthly.
- 26 weeks of maternity leaves to empower the women
GST:
- Group of Ministers to suggest ways to reduce GST for house buyers
- Direct tax collections almost double fold from Rs 6.38 lakh crore in 2013-14 to Rs 12 lakh crore; The tax base is up from Rs 3.79 crore to 6.85 crore
- Businesses with less than Rs 5 crore annual turnover, comprising over 90% of GST payers, will be allowed to file quarterly returns
- Indian Customs to fully digitised exim transactions and leverage RFID for logistic. As an additional perks, Govt abolishes duties on 36 capital goods
Defence & Railways
- Govt increases defence budget to over Rs 3 lakh crore with the option of additional funds, if needed
- Govt have disbursed 35,000 crore rupees under OROP scheme in the last few years
- Railway’s operating ratio is expected to be 96.2% in FY19 Vs 95% FY20.
- Railway capex for FY20 set at record Rs 1.6 lakh crore
Fiscal Deficit:
- For FY19, government has revised the fiscal deficit target to 3.4 percent in FY 19. Fiscal deficit for FY 20 is also estimated at 3.4 percent of GDP.
- Government’s stated commitment earlier was to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3.1 percent of GDP by the end of March 2020, and to 3 percent by March 2021
- Current account deficit at 2.5% of the GDP
Media
- A single window clearance will be made available to filmmakers, anti-camcording provision to be introduced in Cinematography Act to fight piracy
Social schemes:
- Govt to build 1 lakh digital villages
- For the welfare of farmers and for doubling their income, MSP increased by 1.5 times the production cost for all 22 crops
- To ensure cleaner fuel and health assurance, Government embarked upon Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, a programme to give 8 crore free LPG connections to rural households,out of which 6 crore connections have been given already
- Committee under NITI Aayog to be set up for denotifed nomadic & semi nomadic communities.
