The General Budget 2014-15 presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday raised the personal income-tax exemption limit from Rs. 2 lakh to Rs. 2.5 lakh in the case of individual taxpayers, below the age of 60 years. The exemption limit was raised from Rs. 2.5 lakh to Rs. 3 lakh in the case of senior citizens. However, there is no change in the rate of surcharge either for the corporates or the individuals, HUFs, firms etc. The budget proposes to continue education cess at three percent. There has been no change in the rate of surcharge; 15 per cent investment allowance to manufacturing companies, to incentivize small entrepreneurs and income from foreign portfolio investors to be treated as capital gains. Investment limit under section 80C of the Income-tax Act has also been raised from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 1.5 lakh and Deduction limit on account of interest on loan in respect of self occupied house property raised from Rs.1.5 lakh to Rs.2 lakh. To incentivize small entrepreneurs an Investment allowance at the rate of 15 percent to a manufacturing company that invests more than Rs. 25 crore in any year in new plant and machinery. The benefit to be available for three years i.e. for investments upto 31.03.2017. Investment allowance to manufacturing company investing more than Rs.100 crore announced last year to continue in parallel till 31.03.2015. To bring greater certainty and to encourage fund manager to shift to India, income arising to foreign portfolio investors from transaction in securities will be treated as capital gains. Concessional rate of 15 percent on foreign dividends without any sunset date will be continued. To augment low cost long term foreign borrowings for Indian companies, the eligible date of borrowing in foreign currency has been extended from 31.03.2015 to 31.03.2017 for a concessional tax rate of 5 percent on interest payments. Tax incentive extended to all types of bonds instead of only infrastructure bonds. The budget proposes introduction of a “Roll Back” provision in the Advanced Pricing Agreement (APA) scheme so that an APA entered into for future transactions is also applicable to international transactions undertaken in previous four years in specified circumstances. To remove tax arbitrage, rate of tax on long term capital gains has been increased from 10 percent to 20 percent on transfer of units of Mutual funds, other than equity oriented funds. 60 more Ayakar Seva Kendras will be opened during the current financial year to promote excellence in service delivery. Net effect of the direct tax proposals will result in revenue loss of Rs.22,200 crore. (ANI)
