Know Your Budget 2018 - Detailed analysis

The Government’s agenda of ‘Transform, Reform and Perform’ in the budget focuses on implementation of the recent reforms. Hence there are no big bang announcements. The budget addresses needs of agricultural sector and MSMEs, through which agenda of inclusive growth, formalization of economy and boost employment generation is targeted to be realized. The FM’s promise of reducing corporate tax rate from 30 percent to 25 percent for companies remains limited to the MSMES leaving the large tax payers to wait for another year. However, 99% of MSME’s with turnover of upto Rs 250 crores would benefit from the rate reduction. Unfortunately, the large corporates will now carry a slightly higher tax burden from an increase cess of 1 percent. Rationalization of Long term capital gain taxation may be inopportune in terms of timing as their ability to raise funds through IPOs and FPOs may be impacted due to market sentiments changing.