New Delhi: In the backdrop of the financial distress caused by the pandemic, the middle-class community of the nation expected relief from the centre over the overhauled personal taxes. Delivering her shortest budget speech at 92 minutes, Ms Sitharaman dodged expectations of those millions of middle-class bread makers who are crippled due to the pandemic. Pledging to spend more to boost the key engines of growth in Asia’s third-largest economy, the Finance Ministry pretermitted the salaried.
Memes on the Nation envisaging growth ignoring the future have been making rounds on Twitter. Meanwhile, opposition leaders took their chance to slam the centre at the behest of their decisions on Tax. TMC leader Derek O’Brien and CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury raised questions on the tax slabs untouched.
Reduction in Corporate Tax and Surcharges, Free ration and free facilities for those Below Poverty Line and Kisan Samman Nidhi and No IT for farmers were the key elements that were revised during the budget. To add to the grief of the middle class was the tax deduction of state and central employees. The centre moreover managed to purloin the seeding benefits the salaried could capture through crypto capping a tax of 30 per cents on Virtual Digital Assets.