With Digitisation & Positive Tax Moves Budget 2019 Looks Promising

Budget 2019 promises for development and transformation. It lays down procedure on ten dimensions viz.  physical as well as social infrastructure, digital India, a pollution free nation, expansion of rural industrialization, clean rivers, development of inland waterways, launching space programs, making India self-sufficient in food by high farm production for a healthy society and a proactive and responsible bureaucracy. Apart from these, it puts special focus on:

The inclusion of Marginal Communities

The Budget tries to achieve holistic inclusion of all parties viz. De-notified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic as communities, Animal Husbandry and Fisheries as sector and also looking after the person of Indian Origin as an integral part of India.

Digital India

Digitization has been one of the key focuses of NDA government since the beginning. Regarding this a few other steps that the government has announced in the budget are:

• The Government plans to make one lakh villages into digital villages over the next five years.
• Establishment of a National Centre on Artificial Intelligence as a hub along with Centres of Excellence is something which is also envisaged.
• The process of digitization of Income tax has already been started. The government now plans that within next two years, almost all verification and assessment of returns selected for scrutiny will be done electronically through anonymised back office, manned by tax experts and officials, without any personal interface between taxpayers and tax officers.
• In the similar lines as Income tax, Indian Customs shall also be introducing full and comprehensive digitization of export/import transactions and leveraging RFID technology to improve export logistics.

The views expressed are the author's own.