Budget 2019 Highlights: 9 Crucial Announcements Which Every Taxpayer Should Know

This year’s interim budget was presented by interim Finance Minister Piyush Goel, as our Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is undergoing treatment in the US.

Piyush Goel was made the interim Finance Minister as on January 23rd, 2019.

Here are the top 9 highlights from the budget:

Tax Rebate For All Tax Payers

Individual taxpayers, who have income less than Rs 5 lakh in a year will not be required to pay any income tax. This is one major announcement, which will benefit approximaltey 3.5 crore taxpayers, across the nation.

Tax Rebate For Investments

Taxpayers with annual income upto Rs 6.5 lakh can get tax rebates of 100%, if they invest in mutual funds and prescribed equities. This is another major relief for all taxpayers, who wish to invest their money.

Tax Rebate For Salaried Employees

Standard tax deduction for all salaried employees have now been raised to Rs 50,000 per month. Earlier, it was Rs 40,000. This will benefit all salaried employees in the country.

Tax Rebate For Real Estate

Two major announcements have been made in this regard: Full benefits under Sec 80(i)BA has been announced, for all housing projects till 2019-20. This will give boost to the real estate projects currently underway in the country. Besides, TDS threshold on income coming from rentals increased to Rs 2.4 lakh from Rs 1.8 lakh.

Simplified GST

90% of all businesses in India have a turnover of less than Rs 5 crore annually. These businesses can now file quarterly tax returns. This will simplify the tax returns process, and will help the small businesses.

Big Boost For Cinema Industry

Cinematography Act has been reformed, which will now allow cinema directors/producers to get single window clearance, that too swiftly. This will help the cinema industry as projects shall be completed faster now.

Pension For Unorganised Sector

Under Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Mandhan, an assured monthly pension of Rs 3000 has been allocated for all workers above 60 years of age in the unorganised sector. Rs 100 has to be contributed by the employer. This will directly benefit around 10 crore employees in the sector. This has been haild as world’s biggest such pension program for employees in the unorganised sector.

Pension For Farmers

All farmers with less than 2 hectares land holding will  now get assured yearly pension of Rs 6000, which shall be delivered in three installments, directly to the farmers’ bank account. Total of Rs 75,000 crore will be spent in this exercise, which will benefit 12 crore farmers in the country.

Current Account Deficit Controlled

Finance Minister announced that CAD or Current Account Deficit has been controlled to 2.5% of the GDP, down from 3.4% last year.

We will keep you updated, as more details come in.