Lok Sabha passes Finance Bill 2025
Nirmala Sitharaman, in her reply to the debate on Finance Bill, 2025, said the Union Budget of 2025-26 provides “unprecedented tax relief to honour taxpayers” and is aimed at boosting domestic production and enhancing export competitiveness.
- NEW DELHI — The
Lok Sabha passed the Finance Bill 2025 on Tuesday incorporating 35 government
amendments as a key part of the process for the proposals of Union Budget
2025-26 to kick in.
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- Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her reply to
the debate on Finance Bill, 2025, said the Union Budget of 2025-26 provides
“unprecedented tax relief to honour taxpayers” and is aimed at boosting
domestic production and enhancing export competitiveness.
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- She highlighted the changes aimed at tariff rationalisation
and boosting domestic manufacturing in her discussion of the Finance Bill.
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- She said that the Customs Duty rationalisation announced in
the Budget proposals for 2025-26 was moving forward.
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- The Finance Minister said that the government is removing
seven customs tariff rates to address duty inversion and lower input costs and
the Finance Bill now ensures that imports will attract either a cess or a
surcharge, but not both.
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- In order to give a fillip to domestic production, the
government has exempted 35 additional capital goods for EV batteries and 28 for
mobile manufacturing from customs duties.
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- With the Budget now approved by the Lok Sabha it will be
taken up for discussion by the Rajya Sabha. However, the Upper House does not
have the power to vote on the Budget and cannot reject any proposal.
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- The Finance Minister also said that the new Income Tax Bill
to replace the Income Tax Act, 1961 will be taken up for discussion in the
Monsoon Session of Parliament.
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- The Finance Minister has kept the budget deficit target on a
declining path to 4.4 per cent of the GDP in 2025-26 from 4.8 per cent of the
GDP in 2024-25.
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- The Budget also aims to spur growth by driving up demand as
1 crore people with incomes of up to INR 12 lakh per annum will not have to pay
any tax. This will place more money in the hands of the middle class for
spending.
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- The net market borrowing for the budget has been fixed at
INR 11.54 crore while the rest of the funds will come from small savings
schemes.
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- The Budget proposes a gross tax revenue collection of INR
42.70 lakh crore and a gross borrowing of INR 14.01 lakh crore.
