(FE)
Budget 2018 is round the corner and everyone – especially the salaried class — is looking towards Finance Minister Arun Jaitley with much hope. And why not? This is the Modi government’s last full budget before the 2019 election, which is expected to be a populist one to some extent. Among many expectations of the common man, one major expectation is that the basic exemption limit should be increased from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh in the Union Budget 2018. There is a lot of buzz in the media also that this may be done by FM Arun Jaitley to give some relief to the common man and woo the masses.
In fact, everyone was expecting FM Arun Jaitley to raise the basic exemption limit in the Union Budget 2017 itself. More because, hit hard by demonetisation as well as rising prices, the common man needed some relief. However, FM Jaitley preferred not to do this and instead made some changes in the tax slabs.
