The Finance Minister announced relief for the common man in the middle-income group. Although, there will be no change in the existing rates or slabs of Income Tax for the financial year 2019-20, Mr Goyal proposed that individuals having an income of up to five lakh rupees will not have to pay any tax. Even persons having a gross income up to 6.5 lakh rupees may not be required to pay any income tax if they make investments in Provident Funds and specified savings and insurance.
He said, with additional deductions like interest on home loan of up to two lakh rupees and interest on education loan, national pension scheme contribution, medical insurance, medical expenditure of senior citizen will attract tax relief. The budget also hiked standard deduction for the salaried people from the present 40,000 rupees to 50,000.
Considering the difficulties of the middle class, the budget proposes to exempt levy on income tax on notional rent on a second self-occupied house. These measures will benefit over three crore middle class tax payers comprising self-employed, small businessmen, small traders, salary earners, pensioners and the senior citizen.