Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman presented the Union Budget 2023 on February 1, 2023. This is the last full budget of the Modi government before next year’s parliamentary elections. Whenever the budget is announced, salaried professionals and taxpayers take a keen interest in tax slabs. This year’s budget seems to bring good news for the taxpayers.
Good news because while presenting the budget Finance Minister said, “ Currently, those with an income of Rs. 5 lakh do not pay any income tax and I propose to increase the rebate limit to Rs. 7 lakhs in the new tax regime .”
Not only this, revised tax slabs under the new tax regime are also announced ;
- Income of Rs. 0-3 lakh is nil
- Income above Rs. 3 lakh and up to Rs. 6 lakh to be taxed at 5% under the new regime
- Income of above Rs. 6 lakh and up to Rs. 9 lakh to be taxed at 10% under the new regime
- Income above Rs.12 lakh and up to Rs. 15 lakhs to be taxed at 20% under the new regime
- Income above Rs. 15 lahks to be taxed at 30%
Apart from this, there were some major announcements in the Union Budget 2023
- The new income tax regime will now be the default regime but taxpayers have the option to choose an old regime
- Standard deduction of Rs.52,500 for salaried employees and pensioners where income is Rs.15.5 lakh rupees or more
- No income tax outgo for a taxpayer earning up to Rs. 7 lakhs and opting for the new income tax regime
- An individual with an income of 15 lakhs will only be required to pay 1.5 lakhs as tax
- 45% of filed returns are processed within 24 hours says FM
- The average processing time of returns was reduced from 93 days to 16 days
- Focus on technology-based tax governance
- The presumption taxation turnover limit increased to 75 lakhs for professionals. Cash receipts no more than 5%
- A system of unified filing process to be set up to facilitate agencies to source data from a common portal as per the choice of those filing forms
- Roll out the next Gen-IT return form.
- Finance Minister proposed to reduce the highest surcharge rate from 37% to 25% in the new tax regime
