Union Budget Basics                                                 

Written by Vidya Kumar

February 12, 2015

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Executive Summary – The Union Budget for financial year 2015-16 will be presented on February 28, 2015. The Union Budget is a document that details out the revenue and expenses of the government and the broad path it is going to follow towards policy reforms, industrialization and development of the economy.

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It is the budget season and Arun Jaitley is going to present the budget for 2015-16 as Finance Minister. The Union budget is a statement of estimated revenue and expenditure for the upcoming financial year. It affects the markets, economy and interest rates. It is very detailed as it tells how the government is going to collect funds for expenses and is presented in the Parliament for approval. It is presented on the last day of February in the Lok Sabha. There is time for discussion given and then demands for grants are presented. This is basically to get an approval for the expenditures proposed. There is a vote for the demands for grants. After the decisions on grants are made, the Appropriation bill is introduced with demands that have passed. Then the Finance bill is introduced. It has the taxation proposals. Once it is passed after changes if any are made, it becomes the Finance Act which means the budget is approved.

The budget has 2 main parts –
Part A – It covers the various expenditure proposals across different sectors. It has the review of last year’s budget. It is basically a comparison of actual data with the budget made.  Part A is more to do with macro-economic aspects.

Part B – This part has the taxation proposals apart from other things. This has a direct bearing on our finances and taxes.
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Let’s talk about budget !

Here are some terms you will hear when the budget is being discussed by experts on TV or read about in the newspapers and websites –
Fiscal deficit – Fiscal deficit is the difference between government expenditure and revenue including loan recovery. If there is a shortfall, the government needs to borrow money. The lower the fiscal deficit, the better for the country.

Disinvestment – The process of the government selling its stake in companies that it owns/controls or has some holding. This is done to get revenue for meeting government expenditure.

Subsidies – Certain goods and services like fertilisers, are provided to all or some people at prices lower than the market rates. The differential amount spent in this manner are subsidies.

Plan and Non-plan expenditure – Plan expenditure is the amount the government plans to spend on goals set in the 5 year plans to create better infrastructure and improve the facilities. Non-plan expenditure refers to the expenses incurred on running the government like administrative costs, salaries to government employees, subsidies etc.

Expectations of common man from 2015-16 budget.
The common man wants to see some action on inflation, education and housing. The salaried class is looking for raise in the Income Tax exemption limit. Markets are looking at measures to revive growth and expect public investment to drive economic growth. There are expectations that the government will provide tax holidays and other incentives to small and medium scale industries to increase employment opportunities. Experts expect that the government takes steps for fiscal consolidation.

Hope this helps you in understanding the budget and how it will impact the economy a little more than before.

The author can be reached at [email protected]

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