Budget 2016: MPs want income tax exemption limit for individuals to be raised to 4 lakh

Members of the consultative committee attached to the Union Finance Ministry have put forward a suggestion that would cheer millions of middle-class Indians.

They want Arun Jaitley to raise the income tax exemption limit for individuals to Rs 4 lakh per annum from the current Rs 2.5 lakh.

According to an official release, the suggestion came during the first meeting of the committee on Friday in New Delhi.

Additionally, they also suggested the finance minister to raise the limit for mandatorily quoting permanent card number (PAN) for transactions to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 2 lakh.

Presently, there are about 2.5 crore individual tax payers in India.

In his address, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley spoke about fiscal deficit being kept under control, despite a rise in government spending and the need for higher allocation in FY2017 owing to the implementation of the proposals of the 7th Central Pay Commission and One Rank One Pension scheme for ex-servicemen.

The members of the committee also asked Jaitley to consider raising the service tax exemption limit to Rs 25 lakh from the current Rs 10 lakh.

Those who participated in the meeting included Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister; Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Finance; members of the committee comprising Dilip Kumar Mansukhlal Gandhi, J. Jayasingh Thyagraj Natterjee, P.P. Chaudhary, Poonam Mahajan, Shri Ram Charitra Nishad, Sharad Kumar Maruti Bansode, Subhash Chandra, Supriya Sadanand Sule, Udit Raj (Lok Sabha members), Anil Desai, K.P. Ramalingam and Rajkumar Doot (Rajya Sabha members).

Image credit: Indiatimes