Budget expectations: What do you want from FM?

Student:
Deduction for tuition fees paid only include amount paid to school, college, university or other educational institutions. With the hope of enhancing the basic limit of under section 80-C from Rs. 1 lakh to 2.5 lakhs, this deduction should also include the amount paid for admission in private tuitions and coaching classes. With the purpose of providing good education, parents spend more on their children's education by means of private tuitions and coaching classes after school and college. It will not hurt parents to spend well on child's education, which will be ultimately good for the future of India. Transport charges, hostel charges, library fees and cycle/scooter stand charges incurred with respect to education should also be included.

Housewife:
The family's monthly budget has gone for a toss completely from last few months where prices of daily usage things, grocery, vegetables, fruits, onions, potatoes have hit the roof. As these have constant usage for any family, thus these impact family budget a great deal. The prices of all these products including cosmetics and toiletries should come down so that as home-makers we are able to channelize more sums into investments. As tax-payers, the tax –deduction limit of Rs. 2 Lakhs was fixed years ago, we would like this limit to be enhanced to Rs. 5 Lakhs and standard deduction of Rs. 1 Lakh may be raised to at least Rs. 1.5 Lakhs so that more money could be mobilised for savings. Higher education in India costs a bomb which deprives many good students, good education. New Budget should work towards easing out some duties; reduce costs etc. so that it becomes affordable. We as ladies would request for some discounts for higher education of girl child.

We, as woman love to dress ourselves, dress our children & husbands well, and FM should know that well-dressed citizens of any country are reflection of any country's spirits, especially when we have such well-dressed PM. It will give much needed boost towards PM's initiative of establishing brand INDIA, globally. Hence would look forward to cheaper dresses & accessories especially branded ones which are being priced prohibitively. So empower us to dress even more smartly!

Salaried Employees:
Tax deduction u/s 80C is one of the best ways, by which an individual makes certain investments just to save tax. Tax saving u/s 80C is like a mandatory savings for most of people; very few people ignore to claim full deduction u/s 80C. Lot of individuals in first slab of income tax, are barely left with any surplus for investing for investing for their financial goals; over and above Rs.1 lakh investment (including certain allowable expenses). If the limit u/s 80C is increased, it will encourage people to save more and invest in tax savings investment instruments to claim deduction u/s 80C and claim tax deductions. Whether an individual invests in 5 Year Tax Savings Fixed Deposit, PPF, ELSS Fund or any other eligible investment instrument, it at least inculcates a habit of saving and investing. It is very difficult for a person to reduce the regular household expenses, to increase the surplus for saving and investing. But increase in the limit u/s 80C will automatically motivate people to save more just for the tax benefit and reduce his other expenses in some manner.

Allow deduction of Rs.1 lakh for retirement benefit under EPF, PPF. Living long is also a concern and has to be addressed carefully at younger age. The rising trend of nuclear family, advancement of science and medical facility has forced people to seriously think about the same. Both the investments are simple to understand, safe, secure and also give high tax-free returns as compared to other debt instruments. Both instruments are mainly long-term in nature which can help people build part of their retirement kitty.

Senior Citizen
As home-makers, we need to provide for our in-laws & parents who spend majorly on medicines every month, thus leaving them with very little monies at their disposal. If there can be someway where cheaper/ subsidised medicines are being made available to them, it will make all senior citizens as well as home makers happy.

Allow deduction up to Rs. 1lakh for life term plan premium, health and disability insurance premium, preventive health check up, medical bills incurred for parents who are not covered under health insurance. As we do not have social security mechanism in place, having adequate insurance can help a lot to the family. I will also request FM to withdraw service tax levied on life and health insurance plans as this will make products cheaper and affordable to the public at large.

Home Loan
The deduction of Rs. 1,50,000 for interest paid on home loan in respect of self -occupied house property was introduced in 2001, it is more than 13 years that this limit has stayed there only. The prices of houses have skyrocketed during these 13 years and have almost multiplied at least four to five times during this period specifically in metro cities. The benefit of interest of Rs. 1,50,000 gets exhausted on the small loan amount of around Rs. 15 Lakhs. It's a fact that it is almost impossible to get a house property in cities with such small loan amount. So in order to make the dream of owning a house becoming a reality with the help of income tax benefits, the Finance Minister is requested to enhance the limit of interest payment of loan to at least Rs. 5 Lakhs per annum. This will give impetus to the housing industry, thus boosting the economy in the long-run.

Businessmen
One area where we would like to draw Government's attention to is Income Tax refunds. On a gross collections of Rs. 482,000 crores for 9 months ended December 31, 2013 the tax refunds were Rs. 66,000 crores which bought the net tax collections to 416,000 crores (Source : Government press release). Delay in income tax refund causes much heartburn among small Indian Businesses (and individuals as well) and has led to much dissatisfaction and unhappiness for the legitimate tax payers. Besides, the machinery to refund such large amounts imposes costs on the government itself apart from the interest payment required to be made to the tax payer.

One big reason for delay in refunds is the manner in which the finance ministry fixes revenue collection targets for their officials based on net tax collections. As a result the assessing officers are incentivised to actually delay refunds as they scramble to meet their net revenue collection targets by hook or crook. Clearly the finance ministry needs to make sure that the performance indicators for its officers are fixed in a manner that it does not rate those who delay tax refunds as good performers.

Compilation by Bienu Verma Vaghela, Chief Editor, Apnapaisa. Apnapaisa is Online marketplace for loans & investments. Author can be reached at www.facebook.com/ apnapaisa.