Open Magazine — February 14, 2018

12 February 2018

was not spared either. Within hours of Jaitley’s speech, there were murmurs of middle-class resent-

ment, plenty of it to do with Income tax slabs and rates. Many had expected ‘relief ’. this would have

been a populist giveaway, however. “India has a serious challenge on the tax compliance front,”

explained the Finance Minister, “It also faces a challenge in raising taxes. In my previous budgets, I

have consistently given relief to small taxpayers over this time. I am actually surprised at the inad-

equate amount of information behind such questions. do I reduce the size of the Army because I

cannot afford it? do I stop building hospitals? Reducing tax rates does not help.”

In business circles, an expectation from the Government was a lowering of the corporate tax rate

to 25 per cent for all companies (done only for those with annual turnovers upto Rs 250 crore), which

could encourage investment by companies and thus generate jobs. here again, fiscal restraints have

come in the way, though it is being done in steps. “I had mooted the idea that the corporate tax rate

15. Harsh Neotia of Ambuja
    Neotia Group and Arnab
    Goswami of Republic TV;


16. Piyush Goyal and
    Shashwat Goenka;


17. Shobana Kamineni of
    Apollo Hospitals;


18. Uday Shankar of Star
    India; 19. Natalie Toms of the
    British High Commission


19. Vivek Jain of Inox
    Gujarat Fluorochemicals

15 16

17 18 19

HOUSE

cover story