Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented a Budget that has contours of both work-in-progress and a new vision for the future. This year's Budget has continued the theme of agriculture and rural development from the previous year. The focus on farmer and diversification of their income is discernible from the Budget speech.The banking and insurance sector has received considerable focus in all the Budgets so far. Capital gains tax has been reintroduced and tax on distributed income for equity mutual funds has been introduced at a nominal rate of 10%. The introduction of the new taxation regime did impact the revenue position of the government, which will target fiscal deficit as an operational target and will ensure that the fiscal deficit is 3% of the GDP by FY2020-21.

Source: Economic Times February 01, 2018 18:11 UTC