Big News On The Cards For Taxpayers? Modi Government’s Pre-Election Budget May Include Direct Tax Announcements

The interim budget (2019) to be presented by Finance Minister (FM) in February, might include a variety of direct tax announcements, as reported by Business Standard. The interim budget to be present by FM before the general elections in May could have a bigger relating to direct tax proposals than previous interim budgets.

Though discussions are underway, no concrete decisions have been taken in this regard. As per convention, new tax proposals in interim budgets are generally limited. This is owing to the fact that the new government formed post-elections, presents a full budget sometime mid-year. However, there are no express rules prohibiting the same in an interim budget.

“There are short Finance Bills which accompany the interim Budgets, just to extend the prevailing tax rates to April-July. So, all that needs to be done is to add new tax proposals in the Finance Bill. The problem is that once the Finance Bill is tabled, you can expect political opposition. That is something for the leadership to deal with,” a source told Business Standard.

It should be noted that CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes) posted record tax collections in 2017-18.

Also, the Union Finance Minister has initiated preliminary discussions for proposals to be included in the NDA government's last budget.

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