Networth Stock Broking has come out with their analysis on Budget  2008- 09. According to them“Budget 2008-09 seems to be more populist ahead of the impending elections as it tries to promote growth through continued focus on social initiatives like education, agriculture, rural upliftment and public health on one hand, and on the other hand addressing the short term challenges of inflation and the slowdown in the GDP by reducing excise duties and impact of direct taxes to boost the domestic consumption,”

Budget Highlights 2008-2009

·          Plan expenditure is budgeted higher by 17.3% to Rs. 243386 crore and non-plan expenditure by 1.3% to Rs. 507498 crore. Total revenue receipts are estimated at Rs. 750884 crore.

·          Revenue deficit is estimated at Rs. 55184 crore which is targeted at 1% of GDP and fiscal deficit at Rs. 133287 crore at 2.5% of GDP for 2007-08.     

·          Income tax rates have remained uniform. Threshold limit of exemption from personal income tax in the case of all assesses increased to Rs 150,000 which will give every assessee a tax relief of Rs 4000. For woman assesses and senior citizens the threshold limit has been increased upto Rs 180,000 and Rs 225,000 respectively. There was no change in the corporate income tax rates.

·          Service tax rate has been kept unchanged and exemption limit for small service providers has been increased from Rs 800,000 to Rs 1,000,000. Four new services have been brought under service tax net namely, asset management service provided under ULIP, services provided by stock/ commodity exchanges and clearing houses; right to use goods, in cases where VAT is not payable and customized software, to bring it on par with packaged software and other IT services.

·          Allocation for defence has increased by 10 per cent from Rs 96,000 crore to Rs 105,600 crore.

For further detail on budget highlights and impact on sectors click on attachment......