Shri Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Finance described the Union Budget 2016-17 as one which achieves a fine balance between ‘Bharat’, the informal rural economy and India, the modern 21st century India; between fiscal rectitude and economic growth imperatives and between good politics and good economics. Addressing an interactive session on the Union Budget 2016-17 proposals at FICCI , Shri Sinha said the Budget seeks to rejuvenate the rural economy, focus on fiscal consolidation, reform public sector banks, transform the tax ecosystem, massively increase public investment and upgrade the social security system.
Shri Sinha said the transformation in the tax ecosystem will come by reducing litigation and uncertainty by reducing discretionary power of tax officers, Dispute Resolution Scheme, etc. The Budget simplifies and rationalizes the tax system through a Rs. 2 cr limit for Presumptive taxation scheme, abolishing 13 cesses, time limit of one year for disposing petitions seeking waiver of interest and penalty, etc.. There is a commitment to not resort to retrospective taxation, relief to small tax payers is provided for and incentivize Make in India, affordable housing, and moving towards a pensioned society.
He said that a lot more is needed to be done and the focus of the government would on execution of the policies and initiatives rolled out by the government. Much more is to come, he said, such as the GST, the Bankruptcy Code, real estate reform, affordable housing and building of smart cities. He said that the key features of the budget proposal are to build infrastructure through public investment, a robust financial system, transparent and predictable tax regime, cooperative federalism and governance reforms. Mr. Harshavardhan Neotia, President, FICCI, observed that the fine print of the proposals reveal that the Budget was not just a good one but a well-thought out exercise. The reforms measures were far reaching, he said and added that it was gratifying to note that many of the suggestions made by FICCI were incorporated in the Budget.