Rationalise taxes, simplify procedures in Budget: Ficci

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley should use the forthcoming Budget to rationalise taxes and simplify the procedures to boost economic activity, new Ficci President Pankaj R Patel said today.

"There should be rationalisation of tax rates, simplification and streamlining of the procedure," Patel told PTI.

He also said that there should be no harassment of tax payers who should feel happy and satisfied while submitting their returns to the tax department.

The Budget for 2017-18 is scheduled to be presented by the Finance Minister on February 1.

Talking about the demonetisation initiative of the government, he said though there are some short term pains, it would benefit the country in the long run as more economic activities will happen in the formal sector.

"The initiative has brought in unproductive assets in banks and now they would be used in a productive way," he said.

Patel further said that demonetisation has already resulted in reduction of lending rates by about one percent, which will help the industry.

He added that the impact of demonetisation will "go away" in the next couple of months.

The RBI and other agencies have curtailed the growth projections for the current fiscal on account of the cash crunch due to demonetisation of high currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.

Ficci has pegged the GDP growth for the current fiscal at 7.3 percent, as per its latest economic outlook survey, which was prepared before the announcement of demonetisation.