Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is likely to present India’s first post-GST and the current government’s last full Budget on February 1 next year.
After the introduction of new tax regime, the people of our nation eagerly waiting for the first post-GST union budget which is likely to be held on first February 2018.
The President of India Ram Nath Kovind will begin the Budget session of Parliament on 30th January next year addressing the Joint Session of both the Houses of Parliament.
The specialty of the coming union budget is the first budget to be held after the introduction of GST and the session will start with the new president of India.
The union budget will be followed after tabulating the details of the state of economy which are collected through economic surveys.
Scrapping the colonial-era tradition of presenting the Budget at the end of February, Jaitley had for the first time presented the annual accounts on February 1 this year. The Budget presentation was advanced by a month to ensure that proposals take effect from April 1, the beginning of the new financial year. Also, the nearly century old tradition of having a separate budget for the railways was scrapped and merged with the general budget.
Goods and Services Tax (GST), a historic tax reform, which came into effect on 1st July, 2017. GST completely transformed the Indirect Taxation landscape in the country involving both the Central and State levies.
Even though independent India’s biggest tax reform of GST was implemented, this subsumed all indirect taxes in the country. So from July 1, the Budget for 2017-18 (April- March), had followed the practice of tax revenue projections under the heads of customs duty, central excise and service tax alongside direct tax numbers.
The official reportedly said that since the GST rates are decided by a GST Council, headed by Union Finance Minister and comprising of representatives of all states, the Budget for 2018-19 may not have any tax proposals concerning excise and service tax levies.
Only proposals for changes in direct taxes, both personal income tax and corporate tax, besides customs duty, are likely to be presented in the Budget along with new schemes and programmes of the government.
