By Shuddhasattwa Ghosh
The Hon’ble Finance Minister is to present the budget on 01 February 2025. Among all the class of taxpayers, the individual taxpayers await the budget with a hope that the government would introduce tax reliefs which will leave more income in the hands of the individual for consumption spends.
One of the key expectations for Budget 2025 is a revision in the basic exemption limit to INR 5 lakh under the Concessional Tax Regime (CTR). I is also expected that the government will review the overall existing tax rates under both the old tax regime and the CTR.
Also ReadNo tax liability on receiving money from NRI relative; your queries answered
The government in the tax year 2021-22 introduced the provision to consider the employer contribution to retirement funds (provident fund, superannuation and National Pension System) in excess of INR 7.5 lakh per year and accretions thereon, as taxable in the hands of the employee. However certain areas such as identification of fund to be considered for the purpose of considering such excess and methodology to compute accretion is yet to be clarified. It is expected that the government would address the same in the upcoming budget.
Under the existing provisions, if any person pays any amount to the non-resident individual which is chargeable to tax in India, the person is required to deduct the tax and undertake the TDS compliances to report such tax deducted amount in the account of non-resident individual. Where the non-resident individual considers that the tax should not be deducted, an application is required to be filed to obtain a certificate from tax officer for lower or NIL tax deduction. It is expected that the government would either re-look at the tax rate while making payment to non-resident individual or streamline the compliance process for obtaining the certificate and/ or reporting of tax so deducted.
Currently, where an individual receives any sum of money more than INR 50,000 as gift or without any consideration, the whole of such amount is considered as taxable in the hands of the individual. It is expected that the government will re-look at the same and increase the threshold to INR 1,00,000.
Unlike the scrutiny proceedings, there is no fixed timeline prescribed under the Income-tax Act,
» Read More
