Saturday, 28 February 2015

Budget 2015: Smaller Speech, Bigger Vision!




Smaller speech, bigger vision. This is the summary of Modi government’s first full year budget. Finance Minister kept his speech much shorter and meaningful this year compared to his last year’s budget speech where he said too much but of little use

Arun Jaitley may not have touched upon specific industry or sectors in his latest speech but laid a foundation or stepping stone for the future to unleash India Inc. Jaitley proposed numerous measures related to tax issues, ease of doing business in India, promote start-ups and SMEs, laws to curtail black money, additional funds for infrastructure and extension of social security benefits to the poor people of the country.

For common man, the Finance Minister delivered some goodies but not enough to rejoice them. Direct tax benefits like Increase in medical reimbursements, hike in limit under Section 80CCD by Rs 50000 and higher exemptions on travel allowance will partly get offset by increase in service tax rate from 12.36 percent to 14.28 percent. For corporates, the budget had a long-term vision. While the gross corporate taxes will go up this year due to increase in surcharge on corporate and individual taxes, the Finance Minister soothed India Inc with reduction in corporate tax rates from 30 percent to 25 percent with effect from FY16-17. This was one of the prime features of this budget – a step in the right direction of Modi’s Make In India vision. Setting up a fund to promote start-ups and easy credit for Medium and Small Medium Enterprises will add fuel to the country’s growth engine and creation of jobs in the longer term.

Infrastructure has always remained as one of the top agendas for India. With very little room for spending, FM launched a new fund for investment in infrastructure along with measures to raise money from tax free bonds for road, rail and irrigation projects.

In its constant endeavor to decode markets for retail investors, Heckyl prepared a budget e-book “Unleash India Inc” with a 360 degree snapshot of the budget and research views from some of India’s leading broking houses. It covers Budget Impact on market, stocks, sectors, common man’s wallet and India Inc’s businesses. The e-book also summarizes rail budget and economic survey. The e-book concludes with the verdict of the key brokerages views on Budget 2015.

Download Heckyl’s Budget ebook