In these years, the number of tax filers has gone up from 65 million to 80 million, which is still less than 6% of the population. Of all those filers, barely 25 million pay more than zero tax. Thanks to the recent hike in the exemption ceiling, it is possible that another 8 to 10…
Also Read: Is India’s slowdown structural or cyclical? It depends on your expectations. The economic commentary at that time was about slowing consumption dragging down overall economic activity and growth. However, the consumption problem, as we know, is fundamentally one of incomes. To understand this, we must go back to the post-demonetization period (after November…
The government in its Union Budget for 2025-26 proposed raising the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit for India’s insurance sector to 100% from 74%—meeting a long-awaited industry demand. So why did the stocks of most Indian insurance companies end the day flat to negative? The simple reason for that being that well-established life insurance companies…
As the countdown to the budget for 2025-26 enters its final phase, it is about time individual taxpayers got a look-in from finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. They are yet to receive the kind of largesse given by her to corporates in 2019, when the rate of corporate income tax was cut from 30% to 22%….
This is not just from the perspective of funding higher levels of public expenditure that becoming a developed country will entail, but also in terms of the impact it will have on the investment and economic growth needed to help us achieve this vision. Also Read: Budgeting for growth A developed India must have well-drafted…
Focused on managing a home loan and investing in over ten mutual fund schemes, Singh delayed signing up, opting instead for a higher in-hand salary. His decision, influenced by hopes of the old pension scheme (OPS) returning in some form, highlights the financial dilemmas faced by young government employees navigating between immediate needs and long-term…
That article in Mint last week also mentioned a 40-year-old Delhi businessman who spent an initial ₹60 lakh on an obscure Swiss luxury brand timepiece and then customized it for a total cost of ₹1.6 crore. At the other end of the spectrum, pushing through price hikes for tea, coffee and edible oils has meant that…
Attempts to justify this by arguing that it helps control an epidemic of sugar-fuelled obesity weaken on considering the inconsistent approach taken to taxing sugar confectionery, which falls under HSN Code 1704. Taxation is not uniform: some items, like elaichi dana, chikki, gajak etc, attract 5% GST; others like ‘boiled sweets’ attract 12%; while the…
The actual flows are contingent on how these elements perform and are thus beyond the government’s control. True, better compliance has been witnessed in the past, thanks to better systems being put in place. But beyond a point, such flows tend to plateau out. Therefore, the government needs to look at new avenues of taxation…
Independent content creators who have seen a spike in their earnings are flocking to financial advisers, wealth managers and chartered accountants (CAs) to avoid tax troubles and plan investments in everything from financial instruments and real estate to startups. “The broad theme that we have learned while working on content creators’ portfolios is that the…
