Budget 2020 must relax personal income tax rates: Siddharth Jain

By Siddharth Jain

Indian economy needs an urgent dose of consumption booster; thus it would be wonderful to have provisions in the budget which could assist in an instant rise in consumer expenditures. Relaxation on personal income tax rates could be one such move that can act as a booster shot. We expect the budget to bring in provisions for lesser and reduced compliance for smaller companies; which as of today have to follow almost similar compliance that of a larger corporation. We expect this budget to come up with revolutionary steps to overhaul the complete compliance and fillings guidelines for smaller companies and startups and do away with the current penal provisions. The current economic slowdown could be linked with the rapidly declining health of MSME in India; especially the ones in the manufacturing sector. Though the government has already reduced the applicable income tax for this segment; but it appears that it has not been helpful in bringing the required turnaround. More needs to be done to address the concerns of liquidity crunch, ever-increasing compliance and reducing competence for the overseas markets. It has a worse impact on the Logistics sector, especially on the small and medium-sized fleet owners. On one side it is the demand which is declining and on the other side increased operating expenditures have made it very difficult for them to even pay the EMI's regularly thereby increasing defaults. It is very much expected that the coming budget would have provisions to support not only the survival; but the revival of the logistics sector.

(The author is Co-founder at Vaahika)