Budget 2016-17 - Making it Citizen Oriented
The annual budget of the government is not just an exercise in tax collection and expenditures. It sets the pace for the economy and helps in directing investment to crucial sector.
The most important part of the budget that concerns citizens is income tax and any taxes that relate to price of products and services commonly availed. But any increase or decrease in income tax, service tax, cess rates etc. is dependent on what is the outlook on expenditure, how have tax collections fared and how is the economy expected to perform in the coming year.
Therefore it is important for the citizen to think through the essentials of the budget and give their views. It is very important for them to be engaged and involved in the budget. The budget is one single document that affects the financial life of every citizen. Every industry and lobby makes efforts for getting things for themselves.
To equalize this LocalCircles is embarking on a major exercise with all your help to make the budget citizen centric and inclusive. We will also have traditional media (Print and TV) partners in the process. Over the next few weeks we will be doing surveys, polls and collecting inputs from you that we will highlight to Ministry of Finance. Our goal is to make every suggestion, poll and survey to have an impact on this budget. We have also put together a small budget primer (attached) with some of the key terms used in the budget that you may refer to.
If you have inputs on what you want from 2016-17 budget, you can start sharing those as a response to this post. more
The most important part of the budget that concerns citizens is income tax and any taxes that relate to price of products and services commonly availed. But any increase or decrease in income tax, service tax, cess rates etc. is dependent on what is the outlook on expenditure, how have tax collections fared and how is the economy expected to perform in the coming year.
Therefore it is important for the citizen to think through the essentials of the budget and give their views. It is very important for them to be engaged and involved in the budget. The budget is one single document that affects the financial life of every citizen. Every industry and lobby makes efforts for getting things for themselves.
To equalize this LocalCircles is embarking on a major exercise with all your help to make the budget citizen centric and inclusive. We will also have traditional media (Print and TV) partners in the process. Over the next few weeks we will be doing surveys, polls and collecting inputs from you that we will highlight to Ministry of Finance. Our goal is to make every suggestion, poll and survey to have an impact on this budget. We have also put together a small budget primer (attached) with some of the key terms used in the budget that you may refer to.
If you have inputs on what you want from 2016-17 budget, you can start sharing those as a response to this post. more
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Mr Mukhopadhay,what do you mean by Mr Valsaraj's entry been deleted, who,s done it where? more
Jan 31
Public Grievance Redressal System is a very important subject but Mr.Valsaraj's entry has been deleted. How can we know or report about it? more
Jan 30
Dear FM Sir, A citizen like me wants to see bullet proof jacket on every soldier and not the bullet train. The Railways minister had said that the Indian Railways can be transformed with 1 to 1.5 lac crores. Please correct me if I am wrong. Here we have one bullet train project with a cost of Rs. 98,000 crores. Almost all of this will be by loans. With this statistics, I am of the opinion that your government will make India to get immersed in debt. This is like eating ghee in loan amount only. Last time, you said that you are increasing service tax from 12.36% to 14% because of poor tax collection. Now this one project is increasing so much of debt burden on the economy. Hope that better wisdom prevails on your government. more
Jan 30
Service tax has become a day light robbery. It was introduced to cover a limited number of sectors and with the main intention of increasing the tax base. It was introduced at 5%. Today it is difficult to find a sector where this service tax is not applicable. It has grown to 14%. There are media reports of increase of this evil to 15% in the forthcoming budget. We will come to know the truth in a few weeks. I request the FM to take it back to 5% and restrict to the originally introduced sectors. This tax is sucking the blood of common man since industrialists and businessmen are passing it on to him. more
Jan 30
It is suggested as follows: 1. Every year Government presents a budget and it is expected to be a vision document for the year/ future. The resources and allocations are to be detailed therein. Actually I find that there is no vision, but manipulation of financial figures. We never review the previous budget, funds received from modifications of tax structure proposed and funds spent and benefits created for sector/ society/ public. The tax structure is changed for the commodities every year, generally hiked to derive more income. I find that most of the funds are used for administration, salaries and arrears of white collar babus/ government servants, whereas common man is left uncared for. 2. In order to find the truth, let the Government, outsiders such as corporates, financial analysts, common man come out with an indepth analysis of previous budget two days before this year's budget. The pros and cons of previous budget, end use of funds and benefits derived are to be found out. The future budget should aim at reduction of such discrepancies and better utilisation of funds. 3. I find in India, the political system reinvents itself to formulate schemes to divert funds for politicians, government servants and corporate sector. This rotten system has continued for decades and now penetrated to the level of common man, who also invents ways and means of cheating and duping the other man and create black money, corruption, misuse of funds etc. There is no punishment for the financial crimes. 4.If the previous budget is analysed and future budget aims to become a tool for arresting the above defects then the real development will take place. 5. Finally I find that doles have become order of the day and most of the funds are squandered in doles, rather than creation of assets for production and earning. We have created a feeling of " Do nothing, but get doles and freebies and be happy" it is what is hurting the economy. We employ more people in service rather than agriculture and manufacturing. The poor farmers are suffering and committing suicide, about which no Government is bothered. We are not taxing rich farmers, who deceive and create black money and hoarding. Tax structure has to be uniform for all sectors, so also the schemes for common men. more
Jan 26
