India Inc Seeks Cut In Personal Income Tax Rates At Pre-Budget Meet

Representatives from industry bodies sought reduction in personal income tax rates to ensure higher disposable income in the hands of the middle class, reduction in excise duty on fuel, and measures to provide impetus to employment-intensive sectors in their customary pre-Budget meeting with the Finance Minister on Monday.

Industry bodies also raised the issue of dumping of excess stock by China globally, including in India, and challenges posed to food security and inflation due to the "climate emergency", during the fifth pre-Budget consultation meeting.

The 2025-26 Union Budget will be presented on February 1.

Apart from the finance minister, the meeting was attended by finance secretary, secretary of DIPAM (Department of Investment and Public Asset Management), Secretaries of the Department of Economic Affairs and the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India, among others.

Speaking to the media after the meeting, CII President Sanjiv Puri said while the Indian economy is doing very well, globally there are a lot of challenges.

"We are seeing dumping of a lot of products (by China) into various parts of the world, including India. We also have the issue of climate emergency, which, besides other things, also impacts food and nutrition, (food) security and inflation. In this context we have made several suggestions and ideas".

He said the CII has sought measures to provide impetus to areas that have large employment potential like garments, footwear, tourism, furniture, among others, apart from making suggestions for MSMEs and integrating India into global value chains.

"From a perspective of boosting consumption, we have suggested that there be some relief provided to income tax up to a Rs 20 lakh on the marginal income tax rate so that it boosts consumption, there is more disposable income and in turn also leads to buoyancy in revenues.

"We have also suggested that excise on petroleum be reduced a little, that will also provide higher disposable income and contribute to a virtuous cycle in the hands of the consumers," Puri said.

FICCI Vice President Vijay Sankar, who was also present in the meeting, said, "Finance Minister and her colleagues gave a very patient hearing to the industry today. There were about 13 people from different industry chambers. There was some commonality of themes across some of the representations, basically the temporary slowdown faced due to dumping products especially by some our neighbours like China due to the slowdown in their economy".

PHDCCI President Hemant Jain said, "The suggestion we made to the government was reduction in personal income tax so that there can be more money in the hands of people and that can spur the demand and reduce inflation. We have also asked for GST simplification."

Assocham President Sanjay Nayar said, "We emphasised on what the MSMEs need because they are the backbone of the supply chain... whether it is credit flow, complex registrations, multiplicity of TDS... We focused on simplification of procedures and rationalisation of things like TDS".

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