Budget offers tax break to salaried class, businesses

The measures are designed to ease the burden on households and enterprises while targeting key sectors such as real estate, IT, shipping, energy and capital markets, and at the same time promoting documentation, digital compliance and investment. The income tax slabs have been eased, super tax rationalised, excise duties cut, and sales tax exemptions widened to cover magazines, ship­ping, and refineries, while levies on deemed income and the tampon tax have been removed. Excise duty on business class international travel has been drastically reduced in the budget, with the levy on tickets to North, Central, and South America cut to Rs50,000 from Rs350,000. Rates for tickets to the Middle East and Africa have been reduced to Rs25,000 from Rs105,000, while business-class travel to Europe now costs Rs40,000 instead of Rs210,000. The same reduction applies to tickets for the Far East and Australia, where the duty has been brought down to Rs40,000 from Rs210,000. Income tax relief The government has res­tructured income tax slabs for higher salaried taxpayers, lowering rates and raising the threshold for the 35 per cent bracket from Rs4.1 million to Rs7m. Relief will be provided to the four middle bands (Rs2.2m to Rs7m), while the top slab will stay at 35pc. The total impact of this relief for the high-end salaried class wa