Govt Considers Advancing Budget to January end – The finance ministry is overhauling the Budget-making exercise.
The
Union Budget has for decades been presented on the last day of
February, but this could soon change with the government mulling
advancing it to January-end, to complete the exercise before the
beginning of the new financial year.
The finance ministry is overhauling the
Budget-making exercise, which may see scrapping of the practice of
presenting a separate Budget for the railways and Budget documents
getting slimmer with indirect tax proposals finding almost no mention
after excise duties, service tax and cesses are subsumed under the
proposed goods and service tax (GST) regime.
Also on cards is the abolition of the
distinction between Plan and non-Plan expenditure, to be replaced with
capital and revenue expenditure.
Sources said the government felt the Budget
exercise should ideally be over by March 31, against the practice of it
being done in two phases between February and May
While the Constitution does not mandate
any specific date for presentation of the Budget, it is usually
presented on the last working day of February and the two-stage process
of parliamentary approval takes it to mid-May.
As the financial year begins on April 1, the
government in March takes Parliament approval for Vote on Account for a
sum of money sufficient to meet expenditure on various items for two to
three months. The Demands and Appropriation Bill, entailing full-year
expenditure and tax changes, is then passed in April/May.
Sources said the finance ministry felt if the
process was initiated earlier, there would be no need for a Vote on
Account and a full Budget can be approved in one stage before March 31.
The revenue department is also mulling
advancing its pre-Budget meetings with stakeholders to September instead
of holding them in November/December.
In the Budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced of
doing away with Plan and Non-Plan classification from 2017-18, in line
with the termination of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17).
Also, with the roll out of the GST,
possibly from April 1, 2017, the need for the Union government to
legislate changes in excise duties, service tax and cess will cease to
exit as they would all be subsumed in the new national sales tax. The
GST rate is to be fixed by the GST Council comprising Union finance
minister and representatives of all 29 states.
This would mean that Part-B of the Budget,
which contains tax proposals, would get slimmer with only direct tax
proposals being mentioned besides a few other taxes, like Customs, which
would continue to be in the Centre’s domain even after GST rollout.
Besides, the 92-year-old practice of
presenting a separate Rail Budget is set to come to an end from the next
financial year, as the government proposes to merge it with the General
Budget.
With the merger, the issue of raising passenger fares, an unpopular decision, will be the Finance Minister’s call.
The Budget, which is presented by means of
the Financial Bill and the Appropriation Bill has to be passed by the
House before it can come into effect on April 1.
The government has already set up a committee
to examine the feasibility of having a new financial year, replacing
the existing April-March period.
The committee, which will submit its report
by December, will examine merits and demerits of various dates for
commencement of a financial year, including the existing dates
(April-March).
Source: BS
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வாசகர்களின் கருத்து சுதந்திரத்தை வரவேற்கும் இந்தப் பகுதியை ஆரோக்கியமாக பயன்படுத்திக் கொள்ள அன்புடன் வேண்டுகிறோம்.
1. இங்கு பதிவாகும் கருத்துக்கள் வாசகர்களின் சொந்த கருத்துக்களே.
2. கருத்தை நிராகரிக்கவோ, குறைக்கவோ, தணிக்கை செய்யவோ கல்விக்குரலுக்கு முழு உரிமை உண்டு.
3. தனிமனித தாக்குதல்கள், நாகரிகமற்ற வார்த்தைகள், படைப்புக்கு பொருத்தமில்லாத கருத்துகள் நீக்கப்படும்.
4. இணையதள முகவரிகள், வலைப்பக்கங்களின் சுட்டிகளை இங்கே பதிவிட வேண்டாம் என வேண்டுகிறோம்.
5. தங்களின் பெயர் மற்றும் சரியான மின்னஞ்சல் முகவரியை பயன்படுத்தி கருத்து பதிவிட அன்புடன் வேண்டுகிறோம்-கல்விக்குரல்...