Arvind Kejriwal loudly expressed his displeasure on Saturday, following the Union Budget, which fell short of including any plan to ‘end billionaire loan waivers.’. The AAP chief also alleged that a large chunk of the public revenue was being spent on these waivers.
He wrote in a post on X, “A large part of the country’s treasury is spent on waiving off the loans of a few rich billionaires. I had demanded that it be announced in the budget that from now on, the loans of any billionaire will not be waived off. With the money saved from this, Middle-class home loans and vehicle loans should be waived off; farmers’ loans should be waived off. Income tax and GST tax rates should be halved. I am sad this was not done.”
Kejriwal also recommended that money ‘saved’ by his suggestion could be used to waive house and vehicle loans for the middle class as well as farmers. He also recommended that such money could be utilised to ‘halve’ income tax and GST rates.
In his conventional address to the media before kickstarting of a new session, PM Modi on Friday said, he sought “special blessings” of Goddess Lakshmi for the middle class and poor, hinted towards that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman would provide relief to taxpayers and declare more welfare initiatives for the poors.
Reflecting the Maha Lakshmi mantra, PM Modi said that he prayed to the Goddess to have special blessings on the poor and the middle class.
He said, “I pray that Maa Lakshmi continues to bless the poor and middle class of our country.”
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gave her eighth consecutive budget speech on Saturday, in which among the major announcements included the rewards for the middle class is the restructuring of the tax slabs. The salaried individuals with an annual income up to Rs 12 lakh will not have to pay any tax.
The modified taxable brackets started at Rs 4 lakh to Rs 8 lakh with a rate of 5%, going up to 30% for incomes above Rs 24 lakh.
The Finance Minister also declared that the annual limit for tax deductible at source (TDS) on rent has been increased from Rs 2.4 lakh to Rs 6 lakh, benefiting small taxpayers receiving smaller payments.
The Centre said it would waive off Rs 1 lakh crore in direct tax revenues through some of these tax reductions with the wider objective of increasing household consumption and savings.
