A complete waste of time. As usual.

After droning on for a record 2 hours and 43 minutes in delivering her Budget speech Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was forced to stop because she was feeling unwell. We hope she is feeling well this morning. It must be very taxing to utter 13,275 words in 145 paragraphs on 43 pages when there is very little of substance. "Her second budget had no big fiscal stimulus, several protectionist duties, and few convincing steps to revive a slowing economy. Disappointed investors sent the Sensex crashing 987 points," wrote SA Aiyer. The fiscal deficit will be 3.8% of GDP in this financial year, ending 31 March, plus extra-budgetary borrowing of 0.7% of GDP which takes fiscal deficit to 4.5%. Next year she hopes to limit it to 4.3%. If she can manage to sell off some public sector assets. She has apparently reduced income tax rates on people earning up to an income of Rs 1.5 million. In last year's Budget people earning up to Rs 500,000 were exempt from paying any income tax, but anyone earning more than that would have to pay tax on the whole income, and not only on the excess. If that has changed so that those earning between Rs 250,000 to Rs 500,000 now have to pay tax at 5% then it is no benefit. To avail of this so-called lower tax rates the taxpayer has to give up all exemptions that she gets through tax-saving schemes. The trouble is that once you give up all exemptions you can never claim them again which is why many companies have not availed of lower corporate tax rates. There is no guarantee that tax rates will not be increased in a future budget. Securities Transaction Tax (STT) replaced long term capital gains tax (LTCG) in 2004, in which both buyer and seller of shares paid tax at 0.1%, presumably to extract taxes even if shares were sold at a loss. However, LTCG was reintroduced in 2018, without abolishing STT, a clear case of double taxation. The proposed tactic to reduce the number of tax disputes, presently at 480,000, is especially deceitful and dangerous. "If taxpayers pay just the amount demanded, the interest and penalty will be waived." This has to be the most egregious invitation to tax terrorism one can imagine. There is nothing to stop a tax official making a completely unreasonable demand and then terrifying the individual to pay up, to avoid interest and outrageous penalties. Indians living in countries which have no income tax, such as Dubai, will now have to pay income tax in India. This will encourage the rich to become citizens of countries with low tax rates and catch only the labor class who earn more than Rs 500,000, on converting currency to the Indian rupee, but not enough to buy a citizenship. Our current account deficit (CAD) is dependent on the $ 79 billion in remittances from Indians working abroad and if they stop sending money to avoid taxes the Finance Minister could end up losing billions of dollars to earn a few Indian rupees. A complete waste of time. As the Budget is every year.