Budget 2024

New Delhi, Jan 01: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced big relief for taxpayers and a mega push for capital spending and infrastructure as she unveiled the government’s last full Budget before the 2024 national election on Wednesday.

Here’s the cheat sheet on Budget 2023

  • The government has simplified the slabs in the new tax regime, which will be the default version. There will be no tax on income of up to ₹ 7 lahks a year — up from ₹ 5 lakh — and the highest applicable tax rate in India after surcharges has been reduced from 42.7 percent to 39. The new tax regime is “attractive as it gives a greater rebate. It also provides for simplified and smaller slabs,” the finance minister said.
  • The tax slabs will be cut to five instead of seven in the new regime. There will be no tax for income up to ₹ 3 lahks. Income between ₹ 3-6 lakh will be taxed at 5 percent; those earning between ₹ 6 and 9 lakh will be taxed at 10 percent, income of ₹ 9-12 lakh will be taxed at 15 percent, for ₹ 12-15 lakh income it will be 20 percent and those earning ₹ 15 lahks and above will be taxed at 30 percent.
  • The government will spend a record ₹ 10 lakh crore on longer-term capital expenditure, an increase of 33 percent, extending its strategy to revive growth after Covid. This will be 3.3 percent of the GDP in 2023-2024.
  • The government has outlined seven priority areas – including development, reaching the last mile, infrastructure and investment, unleashing the potential, green growth, youth power, and the financial sector.
  • The agricultural credit target has been increased to ₹ 20 lakh crore and in another populist measure, the allocation for PM Awas Yojna increased by 66 percent to over ₹ 79,000 crores. The government has also promised 50 new airports and helipads.

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  • For the railways, the minister announced an outlay of ₹ 2.4 lakh crore — the highest in almost a decade and four times the last year’s budget. “This is about nine times the outlay made in 2013-14,” she said, comparing it with the last year of the Congress-led UPA governance.
  • The Permanent Account Number (PAN) will be used as a common identifier for all digital systems of specified government agencies. The KYC process will be simplified and a one-stop update of identity will be established through the Digilocker service and Aadhaar. A system of ‘Unified Filing Process’ will be set up to streamline the current process of duplication for multiple departments for ease of business.
  • To settle commercial disputes, the government will bring another dispute resolution scheme. There will be a one-stop solution for the reconciliation of IDs maintained by various government agencies, the minister added.
  • With a focus on switching to green fuel, the government is targeting 5 MT of Green Hydrogen production by 2030, Sitharaman stated.
  • The fiscal deficit target of 6.4 percent will be retained in the revised estimate for the current fiscal. For the next fiscal 2023-2024, it’ll be reducing right all the way down to 5.9 percent of the GDP, Sitharaman said.