#budgetsession2019

February 1. An important day. Possibly a day to remember that change substantially the way Indian economy functions. We don’t know yet and only have to wait and watch. It is the much awaited BIG BUDGET DAY.

What is in it for you, and why this budget matters?

It is different in so many days. To start with the date -  Feb 1 is something new and was fought for finally getting the “Go ahead’ from the Supreme Court and the Election Commission in the year 2017 for the first time. . For all that I can remember the Central Budget has been traditionally presented to the Parliament only on 28th February, full four weeks later. With the normal date the time when the money bill is finally passed after the usual hungama , dramabaazi and heated arguments in Parliament it would be too late in the day for the allocations for much of the social sector spending to be allocated and funds drawn to be available for spending when the normal financial year starts on April 1. That was the argument put up by the present government good four months back and had the tacit acceptance by the opposition parties.

More important: Demonetization had taken place which had put severe strain on the economy pulling down growth by almost one per cent of GDP.

Last two years India benefited enormously by the steep drop in oil prices and commodity prices also coming down considerably. There is a possibility that both are likely to move up now onwards. Election of Trump and the new love for protectionism in the US, Europe and other major importers are going to affect Indian Economy. Worse, Trump expectation of reciprocal import measures, patent negotiations, would matter much. On top of that India’s commitments for Climate and Global Heating can be a drain , particularly with no funds promised by the wealthy nations forthcoming and Trump renaging on US position on Climate.

Inequality is very much on the rise and visible everywhere. Even in India and the Government has to do something quick for this.

However Indian Governments performance on the taxation front is all along been miserable. From the 125 crore population only about 4 crore pay income tax, the rest are not covered. Much of the revenue comes from the Indirect Taxes which is considered to be regressive

It is not yet very clear whether it is going to be a Full Budget or an Interim Budget or just a Vote on Account. A Full Budget is one in which all budgetary proposals are made to cover the whole financial year. Some experts are of the opinion that the Government is in its right to present one while many others say that in view of the impending General Elections in April-May the government can only present an Interim Budget and make a Full budget when the new Government takes charge, A Vote on account is something which carries on the receipt and expences are put up on prorate basis for only the next couple of months

So quite likely the Finance Minister would be presenting the Vote on Account in the Parliament. This is not exactly the Union Budget proper, but an interim Funds Proposal to tide over the couple of months till the new Parliament assembles and the new government prepares and presents the Budget for the balance period of the year.

Be that as it may it does still have much of the Budget characteristics which you have to understand. I suggest that you go through all the newspapers carefully for the next three or four days.

Newspapers notwithstanding,  Budget is a complex technical matter and I intend to start giving you a series of inputs and explanations on the Budget process and contents starting with this. So here goes:

Work on Budget making starts almost as early as Nov-Dec. Various arms of the Government start collecting relevant final figures on a variety of subjects and sectors .The Finance Ministry starts tapping the opinions of Economic think tanks, Industry Chambers etc. When I was in AUE(I) Ltd, our spokesperson was the PHD Chambers. When in PSU we approached the SCOPE, DPE, Department of Heavy Industry of Ministry of Industry etc in addition to informally getting through CII. These are for including in the Budget some provisions, concessions, exemptions etc related to various taxes, programs, investments etc

And immediately after the Budget announcement it was my duty from Corporate Finance/BHEL  to ask for and collect from the 5 major manufacturing divisions and the three Business Divisions, as also the GMs dealing with Income Tax and Indirect Taxes the impact of the Budget on their operations in money terms. In addition the remarks of media/ Chambers other experts etc would be examined carefully to  compile a comprehensive report to be sent to the department of HI/Ministry of Industries since it would affect the Government also as the major shareholder in the PSU.  Obviously similar operations would be happening across the country in all the Corporates, particularly the large groups.

During the 70's and 80's when there were no computers and advanced telecom. a bunch of officers would be locked up for almost a month in the North Block working on the Budget with adding machines. They would have no contacts even with their own families for the duration. This year with all the number crunching machines available the trauma lasted only for about ten days. You may have read about this about a week back in the news papers. This is to ensure secrecy of Budget proposals. With the advent of computing and communications this has become less time consuming and more comprehensive. The confidentiality of Budget making inherited from the British system still remains.

A little aside about the North/South Blocks. South Block on top on the Raisina Hills to the right of the Rashtrapati Bhawan  houses the Prime Minister’s Office, Min of External Affairs etc. We had no business with this Block. We in the company were more concerned with the North Block, the identical set of buildings across and nearer to the Central Secretariat Bus stand which contained the Finance Ministry, Policy making offices of Income Tax , Central Board of Excise & Customs etc. But beyond the South Block were what was called the Barracks which held the Member Audit Board 3 of the C&AG with which also we were concerned]

The Budget  week starts with the tabling of the Economic Survey prepared by the Department of Economic Affairs wing of the Ministry. This gives a broad sweep of the nation's economy in various spheres and also go on to give the Govt's view on the work to be done.

Before 2017 the Railway Budget was presented by the Rail Minister. This again is a handover from the British era when the Railways constituted a huge part of Govt. operations. Still it does with a huge network, massive employee strength and substantial impact on the economy. Any changes in the tariffs and fares would impact every section of the society every industry and every consumer. Setting up of even a medium size railway workshop in any place can generate thousands of jobs directly and indirectly in that area have considerable economic boon for that area. However from 2018 the Railway Budget also was merged with the main Budget and presented by the Finance Minister only.

Then comes the presentation of the Union Budget. Can you imagine the Budget was presented in the Parliament before 1991 at 5 PM IST!. Guess the reason why and check with my explanation given at the end of this dispatch. For the first time the Budget was presented in the morning in 1991 Mr Jaswant  Singh . In fact this budget had a lot of drama attached to it and scheduled to be presented at 10 am it could be finally read out only at 11 am after the Parliamentary hungama abated.

When the Budget is presented you might also see some amusing  spectacles. When the FM comes with his proverbial  brief case both the junior Ministers would also try to jostle for space on the first row at the photo session before the news cameramen . When the Budget is read out by the FM sudden comradeship sparks among the Treasury benches  with every one trying to fin d a seat just behind the FM to be within the camera angle. Parliamentarians who are so casual in attending official Sessions turn up with alacrity and in their best dresses well before time to capture vantage seats. Please do make an effort to see the Budget presentation in TV or on the networks. Try to follow the analysis given by the experts in various channels. Follow up with reading as many newspapers as possible in the next few days. You may not probably comprehend much but being confused at a higher level is better than being totally ignorant.

Different Finance Ministers (FMs)  also bring in their own individual styles. Dr. Manmohan Singh would usually start with an Urdu couplet and his soft monotone speech would contain frequent Urdu poets . With Mr Chidambaram you can be certain of a few quotations from SageThiruvalluvar in Tamil. Pranab da would have alluded to some classic quotations in his heavily accented Binglish. They are so serious reading that even occasional jokes sound heavy. The only person in the Finance Ministry with a sense of humour was Mrs Tatakeshwari Sinha of yore, but she was only a Deputy Minister and hence could not present the Budget.

UNION BUDGET :

The Budget Documents come in several parts, about a dozen if my memory serves correct. The main ones are Part A which is the Budget Speech and Part B which consists of Taxation Proposals, both Direct (Income Tax) and Indirect , called GST.

Part A describes the macroeconomic aspects of the Indian economy detailing the broad outlay of funds for different sectors , introduction of new schemes, priorities of the Government and focus areas etc. Parliamentarians and TV viewers slowly start getting bored of this ling winded preliminary part and suddenly jerk into attention when they hear the words " And now Mr Speaker, I present the 'Ways and means of securing the necessary funds" For this p Part B details the taxes for the forthcoming year.

The Budget would give a summary of the intended expenditure along with how these expenditures are going to be met. These could be from taxes, grants , borrowings etc.

In a household budget also you estimate the total receipts on one hand and list out the potential expenses on the other.  and pray that the receipt side is heavier. Usually it is . If not you try to borrow to make up. A country's budget is invariably in the red, meaning the receipts smaller than the planned expenses. Then how does the country run? It borrows. From the market, from other countries or from international institutions. .

WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM:

Mainly from Taxes. There are also some non-tax revenues Let us get to know them more in detail:

TAX RECEIPTS:

Taxes can be of two types : Direct Taxes and indirect Taxes.

Direct Taxes

Direct Taxes are levied on Individuals like you and me, Companies etc.

The present Tax rate on Companies is 30% on their net income. (This is a general statement . A lot of other things are to be worked out on the taxes that companies pay. How do you think all these Chartered Accountants, Tax consultants and lawyers earn their daily bread ;-).). For individuals taxes are on slab basis depending upon the net taxable income. Individuals have to start payinf Income Tax only beyond a certain level of income . Here the number of individual IT Payer in In India is abysmally small compared to the population figure.

Minimum Alternate Tax. Companies are very intelligent. They rarely pay the stipulated 30% tax and the above gents find all kinds of legitimate loopholes to keep the tax paid low. If ultimately a companies tax rate turns out to be less than 10% it has to pay MAT @15% on book profits.

INDIRECT TAXES:

Indirect Taxes apply upon  everybody.So almost the entire population is covered to some extent or other. These are taxes on things that we buy - goods and services. Since it is very widely spread the government prefers to take this route. more often than not. Earlier w used to have these under different heads like Excise Duty, Customs Duty and Services tax Since GST has been implemented all these have merged into GST.

However let us understand what were the areas which were taxed under these heads earlier

Excise Duty: This is the tax on any item manufactured in the country. Every time you buy a pack of matches a small part of the price has already been recovered at the factory itself as ED.

Customs Duty: You can not impose excise on imported goods. Plus certain other economic objectives like protecting local industries by tariff barriers are also involved. This is done through customs duty which is levied on  imported goods. In addition there is also something called counter vailing duty on certain goods for which exact replacement is available within the country .

Service Tax: Services are also a type of good availed by us, only it is not manufactured but provided by human intervention. This also causes expense for the user and income for the provider. This expense is brought under the service tax. More than a hundred services which we avail  like telephoning, eating out,  etc are taxes this way.

You should get to know some more minor technical terms to follow the Budget Speech:

 SOME MORE INCOME THROUGH NON-TAX ROUTES:

Though Railways is a separate Ministry the Railway revenues also get added to the Consolidated Fund which is the total revenues collected by the Govt.

There are a large number of Public Sector Undertakings. Central Govt is the owner of these to the extent of various degrees of disinvestment. Most of them get Govt loans. Interest on these loans are Non-Tax revenues. Several of them are profit making and the dividends are also another source. Interest on loans to the states is another major source. (Students from Calcutta may remember the huge ruckus created by Mamta Di on the interest on loans taken by the Left Front Government couple of years back) Government gets income from other services it provides to the public.

PUBLIC DEBT :The general public lodges a huge amount of money with the government . This is a source of fund but has to be eventually paid back (with interest). The amount in store with the Govt through PPF, Post Office Savings, National Savings Certificate Kisan Vikas Patra, Provident Fund etc all come under this.  

In addition the Govt. periodically sells Treasury Bills (T-Bills) with maturity dates less than one year to fund short term mismatches of receipts and payments. Long Term Loans  are raised  from the market  by issue of  Dated Securities .It can also borrow from the Reserve Bank of India for short duration needs. called Ways & Means Advances.

WHERE ARE THESE RECEIPTS ACCUMULATED:

CONSOLIDATED FUND  :

All the revenues mentioned above get into the Consolidated Fund . Expenses are made from this pool

CONTINGENCY FUND : You read about something called Petty Cash Reserves in your Accounts lessons.  Just like that a small reserve ofRs 500 Crore is maintained separately for any urgent or unforeseen expenditure etc. Whatever amount is drawn from this has to be made good from the Consolidated Fund.

The biggest news currently is coming from the parliament where the Finance minister has announced full tax rebate for the people who earns upto Rs 5 lakh per annual. He also announced the standard deduction for the same segment to R 50,000 from the current Rs 40,000. This big decision will provide relief to around 3 crores tax payers who belongs to the middle class. It will provide relief of more than Rs. 23,000 crore tax relief.