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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that the government wanted to simplify the approach to taxation with regards to capital gains and widen the tax net.
Addressing a press conference after presenting the Union Budget 2024 in the national capital on Friday, she said, “We wanted to simplify the approach to taxation, also for the capital gains. Second, if anything, the average taxation actual has come down."
“When we say it is 12.5 per cent, because we have worked out for each of the different classes… But the point is that we have brought it down from below average to 12.5 per cent, which is the lowest if you look at several years, encouraging investment in the market,” added the finance minister.
VIDEO | Union Budget 2024: "We wanted to simplify the approach to taxation, also for the capital gains. Second, if anything, the average taxation actual has come down. When we say it is 12.5 per cent, because we have worked out for each of the different classes... But the point… pic.twitter.com/fAPyTfTVAb
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 23, 2024
The finance minister said that the government has been making repeated attempts to widen the tax net.
VIDEO | Union Budget 2024: "The attempt to widen the tax net is something which we have been repeatedly saying... that India's tax net will have to be widened whether it is in the direct taxation and indirect taxation. Second, there are also now the PSU dividends that have been… pic.twitter.com/UOlvQoRyVy
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 23, 2024
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“The attempt to widen the tax net is something which we have been repeatedly saying… that India’s tax net will have to be widened whether it is in the direct taxation and indirect taxation. Second, there are also now the PSU dividends that have been improving because their valuations have gone up really, and their performance has also increased. So, revenue mobilisation is not just tax based, you have non-tax revenue mobilisation which are also coming up,” said Sitharaman.
For three years now, she said we have been talking about asset monetisation, which is not selling of assets but optimum utilisation of those assets which are lying in the form of unutilised stadiums or land which is available with PSUs which can be utilised for better purposes.
Sitharaman presented her seventh consecutive budget today, eclipsing the late Moraji Desai’s record of six consecutive budgets, who presented five annual budgets and one interim budget between 1959 and 1964 as finance minister. Desai, however, holds the record of presenting the most numbers of budgets at 10.
This was the much-awaited full budget for 2024-25, the first under the Modi 3.0 government.
Sitharamam had in February presented the interim budget, which took care of the financial needs of the intervening period until a government was formed after the Lok Sabha polls.
Sitharaman, who will turn 65 next month, was appointed as India’s first full-time woman finance minister in 2019 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a decisive second term. Since then, she has presented six straight budgets, including an interim one in February this year.
The budget session of Parliament began on July 22 and, according to schedule, will end on August 12.
With inputs from agencies
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