Many people have lost their livelihoods . The present budget , 2024-25 states that no change in the GST rates which indicates no any tax concessions to poor and middle classes which will result in the continuation of miserable lives of majority . What about the goal of empowerment of poor in the present budget ? Direct Taxes :
1 . Income Tax : Major part of the income tax will be paid by middle class people . It is said that for the past 10 years , the number of people who submit income tax returns has been increased by 2.4 times and income tax collections by 3 times . This will seriously reduce the purchasing power of middle classes . Thus , on the whole , major part of the tax revenue comes from the poor and middle classes .
2 . Presumptive Tax : The exemption limit of presumptive tax for MSMEs and small businesses have been increased from annual income from Rs 2 crores to Rs 3 crore . Further , the annual income of professionals has been increased from Rs 50 lakhs to 75 lakhs . This decision is taken in the last year and will be continued in the present financial year . Thus , higher incomes are always exempted from tax .
3 . Corporate Tax : On the pretext of supply chain incentivisation to attract foreign investment and to raise Ease of Doing Business , the corporate tax has been decreased from 30 percent to 22 percent in September 2019 . For new manufacturing companies , it is only 15 percent . The decrease in the corporate tax will continue even in 2024-25 . This decision resulted in the loss of the revenue to the tune of 1 lakh crore in 2020-21 . The loss in the tax revenue will be continued for the benefit of corporate forces .
No any proposals are in the budget to control economic recession through direct and indirect taxes . It is known to all that the “ Make in India ” initiative and Production
March - 2024
Linked Investment Scheme failed to increase Private Domestic Investment , to direct foreign investment to manufacturing sector and to create employment . The present economic crisis urgently needs to take measures to increase aggregate demand . The present budget did not have any proposals in this direction . In order to measure the availability of bank loans to private sector , the government decided to borrow less from banks . In fact , the banks do not have any liquidity problem . No public investment . No rise in the private investments . No employment generation . Thus , the tax concessions are given to monopoly capital for not taking risk .
In order to benefit the one crore “ honest ” tax payers who are caught is small disputes in the payment of direct taxes , the present budget proposes to withdraw cases against those who have tax payment due to the tune of Rs 25,000 upto 2009- 10 and who have due to the extent of Rs 10,000 upto 2014-15 . It can be seen that the neo-liberal policies are searching for various ways and means to give tax concessions to wealthy . Disinvestment :
The disinvestment of PSUs and the sale of public enterprises to private sector as cheap as possible became a vital source of public revenue . Thus , it is used as an important tool to transfer nation ’ s property to the monopoly capital . This process is aggressively increased for the last 10 years . Though it is not mentioned in the interim budget , it is estimated that the public revenue through disinvestment will be Rs 30,000 crore . Immediately , after the two days of budget presentation , the finance minister declared that the shares of Public Sector Bank Giant , SBI , Oil and Natural Gas Giant , ONGC are ready to sell . The government will sell more than 50 percent shares to private sector and gradually , they will be privatised .
The budget greatly declares the allocation of Rs 11.12 lakh crores to the creation of infrastructure . All this is to handover them to private sector on the name of Asset - Monetisation . It is estimated that the estimated revenue from this process is to the tune of Rs 1.75 lakh crores . Thus , the public property will be transferred to monopoly capital . All this will accentuate the crisis of unemployment and further rise in the economic inequalities . Consequently , the present economic crisis will become more critical . Poverty and Economic Inequalities :
The rise in the economic inequalities is associated with a decline in the real growth rate of Gross Domestic Product . Various global level reports as well as our national level reports are confirming this trend . In India , the share of bottom 50 percent in income has been declined from 19.08 percent during 1991-2000 to 13.25 percent in 2011-2020 . The share in the wealth declined from 8.36 percent to 6.12 percent during the same period . Conversely , the income share of top 1 percent wealthy has been increased from 13.26 percent to 21.74 percent and it is increased from 23.31 percent to 30.55 percent in the share of wealth . The growth rate in the income and wealth of top 10 percent population is higher than the growth rate of Gross Domestic Product . As a result , the poverty is increasing rapidly . This is the growth of wealthy class . It is not at all inclusive .
Oxfam Survey emphasizes India ’ s Inequality . The top 1 % of the population now own more than 40.5 % of the total wealth in 2021 . 5 % of Indians own more than 60 % of the country ’ s wealth , while the bottom half of the population ( 70 crore ) share only 3 % of the wealth between 2012 and 2021 . 73 % of the wealth generated in 2017 was captured by the richest 1 %. 77 % of the total national wealth is in the hands of
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