Maha budget: No tax hikes, but liquor set to cost more

With a backdrop of demonetisation and a change in the tax regime in July this year, state finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar on Saturday presented a cautious budget for 2017-18, which shied away from any big bang announcements for Maharashtra.

The budget did not commit to a farm loan waiver, but said the state had requested the Centre for assistance and would give budgetary support for any future Central government scheme to “reduce farmers’ old debts’’.

The budget, with an estimated revenue expenditure of Rs2.48 lakh crore, tabled in both the houses of the state legislature amid din by the Opposition seeking loan waiver for farmers, will not burn a hole in your pocket, at least for the next three months.

The state government did not hike any taxes in lieu of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) being rolled out in the country from July 1.

The only exception was to hike value added tax (VAT) on foreign liquor, Indian-made foreign liquor and country liquor from 23.08% to 25.93% and increase tax on weekly lotteries from Rs70,000 to Rs1 lakh.

The former will mean that a bottle of whiskey costing Rs1,000 will be dearer by Rs30 — the overall impact in a restaurant may be higher.

Despite the state government’s insistence that demonetisation had little impact on the state exchequer, the budget figures (revised estimates for 2016-17) revealed otherwise.

The state government actually fell short of its revenue earnings target by a good Rs11,283 crore.

The income from real estate, such as stamp duty and registrations, sale of Floor Space Index (FSI) besides excise earnings took a hit.