Union Budget 2017 - Income Tax Rates Slashed, Focus on Infrastructure, Small Businesses get Big Boost

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the union Budget for 2017 in the parliament today.

Following are the major highlights of the Union Budget 2017: -

The total expenditure of the budget presented today is Rs. 21.47 lakh crore. Defense Expenditure, excluding pensions has been set at 2.74 lakh crore
Tax rate for those with income of Rs 2.5- 5 lakhs slashed to 5 % from 10 %
No tax for income upto 3 lakhs
10% Surcharge for assesse income between 50 lakhs to 1 crore
Foreign Investment Promotion Board ( FIPB) will be abolished. This was seen as a major hurdle for foreign investors.
Highest ever allocation of 48, 000 crores for MNREGA.
10,000 Crore allocation towards recapitalization of Public Sector Banks.
Major reform in political funding. Donations in cash without explaining source will be capped at Rs. 2000. Earlier it was Rs. 20, 000.
Finance Minister proposed a ban on all cash transactions above Rs. 3 lakh beginning April 1, 2017.
Fiscal Deficit target has been raised to 3.2 per cent of the GDP for 2017-18.
Tax relief was announced for smaller companies which will benefit MSMEs quite significantly.
There were significant changes announced in Long-term capital gains tax housing. The base year for indexing was moved to 2001 instead of the earlier one which was 1980. The holding period of property is now 2 years, instead of 3.
For the common man, the cost of railway tickets went down but all tobacco products became significantly expensive.
Reforming Taxation and getting back the black money remained in focus as there were announcements made on them. The FM also raised concerns about how incomes were not being declared accurately.

You can watch the entire Budget speech here:

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