Arun Jaitley did not give any hints on Budget 2017

Posted on December 27, 2016

The whole media is buzzing about Finance Ministor, Arun Jaitley giving hints about how budget 2017 will look like. Well most of the hints were misinterpreted by media and our Finance Minister put up his speech on his Twitter account.

Finance Minister gave a speech at the graduation of 68th Batch of IRS (C&CE) Officers at NACEN Campus, in Faridabad, Haryana, on Monday. During his speech he spoke about few points that media misunderstood. Finance Minister (FM) did talk to the new batch about how tax rates were extraordinarily high pre 1991 due to a small economy and existence of only little business. Now since economy is growing the taxes have come down. This equation is being followed globally and India too has being following it since 7 decades. There was no mention of anything with respect to Budget 2017 that will be discussed on 1^st February 2016.

The current non taxable slab is at 2.5 Lakhs per annum, which means people with this annual income do not need to pay tax. There are reports in media about non taxable slab rate to increase to 4 LPA and the tax slabs to become even wider. Well none of this was confirmed by our FM. Similarly long term capital gains were also not discussed.

FM did tell that corporate and personal tax rates are going to be independent from the tax rates of customs. Also new batch should be well versed with tax laws so that when GST is introduced, they will cooperate with state and centre level departments to make it work. Also once people stop evading tax and make it their moral duty to pay legitimately, the department should start trusting people but non payment should not be tolerated.

Finally FM told the new graduates that short cuts will not pay off in time, quality of work will reflect on the orders they pass. IRS has been given the power to investigate and act as a judicator. This power should not be misused. Below is the speech. Read more Indian Business News.