Following the pandemic, the income of the bottom 50 per cent of the population is estimated at 13 percent of national income and 3 percent of total wealth Apoorva Mahendru, Kanishk Gomes, Mayurakshi Dutta, Noopur, Pravas Ranjan Mishra Oxfam International's annual inequality report makes for stark reading. The India supplement, part of the main report, states that the top 1 percent of Indians own nearly 40.6 percent of the total wealth in...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Central excise duty on petrol and diesel cut, says FM Nirmala Sitharaman -Vikas Dhoot
-The Hindu The measures included a ₹8 reduction in central excise duty per litre of petrol and a ₹6 cut in the duty on diesel. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled a slew of measures to rein in runaway inflation on Saturday evening, including duty cuts on petroleum products, a ₹200 subsidy on LPG cylinders for the poor and a rejig of import duties on plastic and steel products. A reduction in central excise...
More »Centre's tax revenues grew despite stringent lockdown on the back of excise duties
-The Hindu Shift in tax burden comes at a time when pandemic has led to many job losses and reduced income levels In FY21, despite a stringent lockdown and a raging COVID-19 first wave, the gross tax revenue collected by the Centre increased over FY20. However, the increase was made possible by a sharp rise in contributions from Union Excise Duties. This compensated for the sharp drop in the share of corporate...
More »Tax exemptions and incentives for the corporate sector continue despite reduction in corporate tax rates
Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...
More »A changing fiscal framework -Dipankar Dasgupta
-The Hindu The government’s announced fiscal policy stance and the fiscal regime it is running seem contradictory There used to be a time — and this was well before India began to globalise — when each Union Budget announced sales tax increases on tobacco products, especially cigarettes. The demand for cigarettes being somewhat inelastic, the rise in tax was expected to be a shot in the arm for the revenue-starved government of...
More »