All eyes on Union Budget 2024: What’s in it for taxpayers?

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is all geared up to present the first Budget of the third consecutive NDA government at the helm of affairs headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 23. The Union Budget 2024 will be the maiden economic blueprint of the Modi 3.0 government, which is expected to chart out a course on how to make India a ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047.

On Monday, Sitharaman presented the pre-budget Economic Survey in the Lok Sabha, making a somewhat modest growth projection of 6.5 to 7 per cent for the ongoing fiscal. The survey underlined the challenge of creating enough jobs and pointed out the requirement for more direct investments from China to support exports. Although the trade environment remained inclement last year, on account of a fall of 5 per cent in India’s merchandise exports in FY24, this survey sees a recovery in the current year and the next—conditioned, however, by a host of factors, notably geopolitical tensions and policy uncertainties that may limit the extent of recovery in trade.

Also, experts have been demanding that the government come up with the announcement of relief in taxes for the common man to boost consumption and action on the inflation front. In the earlier two budgets, the taxation policies didn’t see many changes except making the new tax regime a default and introducing a standard deduction feature.

Additionally, the interim Budget for the current financial year was presented on 1 February 2024 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Now, with the BJP no longer having a majority on its own as the Finance Minister presents the Budget for Modi 3.0, all eyes will be on what those changes in numbers now look like.

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