The poll found that more than two out of three responders wished for a raise to the tax deduction limits under section 80C of the Income Tax Act.
In the first week of January, Kuvera, the online investment and financial planning platform, conducted a poll among its users asking them of their expectations from the Union Budget 2023. Kuvera has around 16 lakh users at present.
“Responders said they would prefer if the limit doubled from its current Rs1.5 lakh. The current limit hasn’t changed since 2014 and taxpayers are clearly expecting some relief from the upcoming budget,” said Gaurav Rastogi, co-founder, Kuvera.
According to Elara Capital, the upcoming budget is set to be framed amid ‘relatively stable economic’ conditions even as ‘ill winds’ of Covid-19, high commodity prices, tightening interest rates, rising US dollar and war-led shortages seem to have run their course.
Another significant expectation of taxpayers, according to the survey, is making the scheme for switching from regular to direct of the same fund tax free. Three out of every 10 responders voted for this change. Currently the scheme is taxable.
While the government may be announcing new measures to bring down the budget deficit to below 5%, fiscal prudence was not a top priority for taxpayers, the survey found.Less than one in 10 said they wished for the finance minister to reduce the budget deficit to 5% or below.
“According to our survey, taxpayers, at least among our user base, were more interested in tax sops than the country’s budget deficit. With the fear of recession looming large, it would be good to announce tax relief and encourage people to save more,” Rastogi added.
Despite the upcoming elections, analysts expect the government to ‘stay the course’ on maintaining macro- economic stability, by prioritizing capital expenditure, and via policies boosting consumption of the lowest-income strata.
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