Finance minister Arun Jaitley focussed on TEC—Transform, Energize and Clean—as the theme of the Union Budget 2017-18. The integration of the railway budget into the general budget, the collapsing of the ‘plan’ and ‘non-plan’ parts of the expenditure and bringing forward the date of the budget to 1 February; are all obvious pointers to winds of change in the way the government thinks about the future. One, it looks as if this is the first time that the honest taxpayer has got a mention and sympathy in the budget speech. Long-term capital gains taxes are lower than the taxes on short term capital gains. The budget has removed the anomaly of those who let out loan-bought houses being able to charge the entire interest as cost.

Source: Mint February 01, 2017 10:40 UTC