New tax relief to parents of disabled

The Budget neither put more money in the hands of the middle class to beat inflation nor did it promise to bring back jobs lost in the Covid-19 pandemic

New Delhi: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced tax relief for persons with disabilities. The parents or guardian can take insurance from their children with disabilities, she said. She added that the payment of annuity or lump sum for disabled dependent will be exempted during the lifetime.

The pandemic-hit middle class and salaried class saw nothing much coming their way from the Budget presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The Budget neither put more money in the hands of this class to beat inflation nor did it promise to bring back jobs lost in the pandemic.

The inflation is eating up the income of the middle class, which has been hit by job losses and pay cuts due to the pandemic.

“Middle classes are disappointed with the Budget for sure,” tweeted Biocon executive chairperson Kiran Mazumdar Shaw. “The Budget has not looked at private consumption as a means to grow the economy. If you put more money in the hands of this consuming class, the wheels of the economy will keep moving. In fact, the share of private consumption to GDP has been coming down in the past few years,’ said Arvind Singhal, CMD, Technopak Advisors.

According to him, this could have been done by rationalising GST on products with high rates and by providing relief in income tax.

“With the increase in direct tax collections, tax payers expected relief in terms of increase in basic exemption limit, increase in standard deduction for the salaried class, increase in the exemption limit of allowances for salaried class which have not been revised for a long time. They also expected an increase in the limit of deduction u/sec 80C, which is for investments made in provident funds, LIC premiums, equitylinked savings scheme, principal amount payment towards home loan, among others. These were predominantly the expectations from the middle class population,”Sundara Rajan TK, Senior Partner, DVS Advisors LLP.