Budget Highlights 2011

Direct Taxes

• Exemption limit for the general category of individual taxpayers enhanced from 1,60,000 to 1,80,000 giving uniform tax relief of 2,000. (No relief females as their slab not changed from existing 1,90,000)
  
• Exemption limit enhanced and qualifying age reduced for senior citizens.
• Higher exemption limit for Very Senior Citizens, who are 80 years or above.
• Current surcharge of 7.5 per cent on domestic companies proposed to be reduced to 5 per cent.
• Rate of Minimum Alternative Tax proposed to be increased from 18 per cent to 18.5 per cent of book profits.
• Tax incentives extended to attract foreign funds for financing of infrastructure.
• Additional deduction of ` 20,000 for investment in long-term infrastructure bonds proposed to be extended for one more year.
• Lower rate of 15 per cent tax on dividends received by an Indian company from its foreign subsidiary.
• Benefit of investment linked deduction extended to businesses engaged in the production of fertilisers.
• Investment linked deduction to businesses developing affordable housing.
• Weighted deduction on payments made to National Laboratories, Universities and Institutes of Technology to be enhanced to 200 per cent.
• System of collection of information from foreign tax jurisdictions to be strengthened.
• A net revenue loss of 11,500 crore estimated as a result of proposals.

Indirect Taxes

• To stay on course for transition to GST.
• Central Excise Duty to be maintained at standard rate of 10 per cent.
• Reduction in number of exemptions in Central Excise rate structure.
• Nominal Central Excise Duty of 1 per cent imposed on 130 items entering in the tax net.
• Lower rate of Central Excise Duty enhanced from 4 per cent to 5 per cent.
• Optional levy on branded garments or made up proposed to be converted into a mandatory levy at unified rate of 10 per cent.
• Peak rate of Custom Duty held at its current level.

Agriculture and Related Sectors

• Scope of exemptions from Excise Duty enlarged to include equipments needed for storage and warehouse facilities on agricultural produce.
• Basic Custom Duty reduced for specified agricultural machinery from 5 per cent to 2.5 per cent.
• Basic Custom Duty reduced on micro-irrigation equipment from 7.5 per cent to 5 per cent.
• De-oiled rice bran cake to be fully exempted from basic Custom Duty. Export Duty of 10 per cent to be levied on its export.

Manufacturing Sector

• Basic Custom Duty reduced for various items to encourage domestic value addition vis-à-vis imports, to remove duty inversion and anomalies and to provide a level playing field to the domestic industry.
• Rate of Export Duty for all types of iron ore enhanced and unified at 20 per cent ad valorem. Full exemption from Export Duty to iron ore pellets.
• Basic Custom Duty on two critical raw materials of cement industry viz. petcoke and gypsum is proposed to be reduced to 2.5 per cent.
• Cash dispensers fully exempt from basic Customs Duty.

Environment

• Full exemption from basic Customs Duty and a concessional rate of Central Excise Duty extended to batteries imported by manufacturers of electrical vehicles.
• Concessional Excise Duty of 10 per cent to vehicles based on Fuel cell technology.
• Exemption granted from basic custom duty and special CVD to critical parts/assemblies needed for Hybrid vehicles.
• Reduction in Excise Duty on kits used for conversion of fossil fuel vehicles into Hybrid vehicles.
• Excise Duty on LEDs reduced to 5 per cent and special CVD being fully exempted.
• Basic Customs Duty on solar lantern reduced from 10 to 5 per cent.
• Full exemption from basic Customs Duty to Crude Palm Stearin used in manufacture of laundry soap.
• Full exemption from basic Excise Duty granted to enzyme based preparation for pre-tanning.

Infrastructure

• Parallel Excise Duty exemption for domestic suppliers producing capital goods needed for expansion of existing mega or ultra mega power projects.
• Full exemption from basic Customs Duty to bio-asphalt and specified machinery for application in the construction of national highways.

Other Proposals

• Scope of exemptions from basic Customs Duty for work of art and antiquities extended to apply for exhibition or display in private art galleries open to the general public.
• Exemption from Import Duty for spares and capital goods required for ship repair units extended to import by ship owners.
• Concessional basic Custom Duty of 5 per cent and CVD of 5 per cent available to newspaper establishments for high speed printing presses extended to mailroom equipment.
• Jumbo rolls of cinematographic film fully exempted from CVD by providing full exemption from Excise Duty.
• Out right concession to factory-built ambulances from Excise Duty.
• Relief measures proposed for raw pistachio, bamboo for agarbatti, lactose for the manufacture of homoeopathic medicines, sanitary napkins, baby and adult diapers.
• Proposals relating to Customs and Central Excise estimated to result in a net revenue gain of 7,300 crore.

Service Tax

• Standard rate of Service Tax retained at 10 per cent, while seeking a closer fit between present regime and its GST successor.
• Hotel accommodation in excess of 1,000 per day and service provided by air conditioned restaurants that have license to serve liquor added as new services for levying Service Tax.
• Tax on all services provided by hospitals with 25 or more beds with facility of central air conditioning.
• Service Tax on air travel both domestic and international raised.
• Services provided by life insurance companies in the area of investment and some more legal services proposed to be brought into tax net.
• All individual and sole proprietor tax payers with a turn over upto 60 lakh freed from the formalities of audit.
• To encourage voluntary compliance the penal provision for Service Tax are being rationalised. Similar changes being carried out in Central Excise and custom Laws

Pay cheques that world leaders take home

As Egypt celebrates the success of their revolution, the focus now shifts to its ex-President, Hosni Mubarak
Mubarak, who publicly stated to take home a salary of nearly Rs 46,000 a month as President, is now facing the heat as details of the assets worldwide emerge thick and fast.
Mubarak's and his family's net worth is estimated to be between $40 billion (Rs 182,500 crore) and $70 billion (Rs 319,500 crore). The Mubarak family owns properties in London, Paris, Madrid, Dubai, Washington, New York and Frankfurt, according to a report from IHS Global Insight.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh doesn't earn a salary as such, but his various cash allowances total approximately Rs 50,000 rupees plus other perks.
President of India Pratibha Patil takes home a salary of Rs 1.5 lakh every month.
Almost everything that the President does or wants to do is taken care of by the nearly Rs 30 crore budget that the government allots for her upkeep. The allocation also covers establishment-related expenses in respect of all the staff of the secretariat and expenditure on household establishment and purchase of vehicles.

President of United States Barack Obama
Pay cheque: Obama earns $33,333 every month (about Rs 1,520,818), along with a $50,000 annual expense account, a $100,000 non-taxable travel account and $19,000 for entertainment.

President of Iran Mehmoud Ahmadinejad
Pay cheque: Ahmadinejad takes home a paltry Rs 11,373 every month. What's surprising is that, as per media reports, Ahmadinejad doesn't draw his salary as President but as a lecturer in a university college! For additional information, the Iranian President still lives in his house and not the Presidential palace.

President of China Hu Jintao
Pay cheque: Hu Jintao earns Yuan 70,078 (Rs 483,639) a month

President of South Korea Lee Myung-bak
Pay cheque: Lee Myung-bak earns close to 1.8 billion won or Rs 7.3 crore per annum

Prime Minister of Britain David Cameron
Pay cheque: At present, the prime minister receives 142,500 (Rs 1.4 crore), including a salary of Rs 65,737 as a Member of Parliament per annum

President of Chile Sebastian Pinera
Pay cheque: Pinera takes home $12,600 or Rs 5.7 lakh a month

President of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Paycheque: Yudhoyono gets Rupiah 62 million or Rs 3.16 lakh a month.

President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe
Pay cheque: Mugabe takes home about $1,500 or Rs 68,250 every month

President of Portugal Anibal Cavaco Silva
Pay cheque: On paper, Silva earns 6,523.93 euros or Rs 4.1 lakh a month. However, the Portuguese president Anibal Cavaco Silva has not been receiving his presidential salary ever since a new law was passed in Western Europe's poorest country prohibiting public servants from drawing both a salary and a pension at the same time. The 71-year-old conservative receives pensions from the central bank and Universidade Nova von Lissabon worth a total of 10,042 euros or nearly Rs 6.2 lakh per month, according to media reports.

President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev
Pay cheque: Medvedev reportedly earns $9,493 or Rs 4.3 lakh a month

Sources - rediff.com