Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram presented his fifth Budget in Parliament on Friday.
Changes in I-T slab. Threshold of exemption for all Income Tax assesses raised from from Rs 1,10,000 to Rs 1,50,000.
Every income tax assessees to get relief of minimum of Rs 4,000.
No change in rate of surcharge.
New tax slabs will be: 10 per cent for Rs 150,000 to Rs 300,000, 20 per cent for Rs 300,000 to Rs 500,000 and 30 per cent above Rs 500,000.
For women, the income tax limit goes up from Rs 1.45 lakh to Rs 1.80 lakh. In case of senior women citizens, it increases from Rs 1.95 lakh to Rs 2.25 lakh.
Fresh facilities, encouragement to sports and guest houses exempted from Fringe Benefit Tax.
Five year tax holiday for setting up hospitals in tier II and tier III regions for providing healthcare in rural areas from April 1, 2008.
Five year tax holiday for promoting cultural tourism.
Short-term capital gains increases to 15 per cent.
Commodities Transaction Tax to be introduced on the lines of Securities Transaction Tax.
Banking cash transaction tax withdrawn from April one, 2009.
Direct tax proposals to be revenue neutral. Indirect tax proposals to result in loss of Rs 5,000 crore.
Rs 500 crore for corpus fund to subsidise all women Self Help Groups for LIC [Get Quote] cover for permanent disability.
Agricultural loans given by scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks and cooperative credit institutions up to March 31, 2007 and due for December 31 that year will be covered under the waiver scheme to address the problem of indebtedness.
No change in corporate income tax.
To protect tigers, Rs 50 crore for National Tiger Conservation Programme. Bulk of it to be used to raise Tiger Protection Force.
Plan expenditure fixed at Rs 2,43,000 crore and non plan expenditure at 5,74,000 crore.
Fiscal deficit pegged at 3.1 per cent and revenue deficit at 1.4 per cent.
Tax to GDP ratio increased from 9.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 12.5 per cent 2007-08.
No change in peak rate of customs duty for non
Customs duty on specified life saving drugs reduced from ten per cent to five per cent.
Special Countervailing Duty on power imports.
Customs duty on specified sports goods machinery down from 7.5 per cent to five per cent.
Duty withdrawn on naptha for production of polymers.
Duty on crude and unrefined sulphur reduced from five to 2 per cent to help raise domestic fertiliser production.
General Centvat on all goods to be reduced from 16 per cent to 14 per cent. Excise duty reduced from 16 per cent to eight per cent on all pharmaceutical goods manufacture.
Excise duty on small cars reduced to 12 per cent from 16 per cent and hybrid cars to 14 per cent.
Excise duty reduced from 16 to 8 per cent on water purification items.
Duty on non filter cigarettes to be raised.
Asset management service under mutual funds, services by stock exchanges to be brought under Services Tax net.
Threshold for small service providers raised from Rs eight lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
Allocation for defence to be increased by 10 per cent from Rs 96,000 crore to Rs 1,05,600 crore.
75 lakh people to be covered by health insurance scheme.
Allocation for Textile Upgradation Fund to be more than doubled.
Micro, small and medium enterprises to continue to get special attention.
Risk Capital Fund to be set up in SIDBI.
PAN requirement to be extended to all transactions in capital market subject to a threshold.
Rs 750 crore for upgradation of 300 ITIs in 25 districts.
Rs 32,676 crore as subsidy to Public Distribution System.
PDS through smart cards in Haryana and Chandigarh on pilot basis.
Three schemes to be introduced for providing social security to unorganised sector workers.
Sixth central pay commission to submit report by March 31, 2008.
Rs 624 crore allocated for Commonwealth Games
