What Wealth Advisers Expect From Budget

With the Union Budget just around the corner, all eyes remain on the annual financial document and in it, any relief in terms of taxes for the common man. Financial experts where on one hand expect the government to make announcements in the form of tax reliefs, on the other, the widened fiscal deficit may be a dampener for the government.

Here's what wealth planners say on their expectations from the upcoming Budget.

Adhil Shetty, CEO, BankBazaar:

"Despite being an interim budget, there is no hard and fast rule which stops the outgoing government from framing any new major policies or benefits, and it is widely hoped that the government introduces changes that could help people save more and save better."

"The government should consider increasing the tax deduction limit for housing loans, especially for buyers in metropolitan cities. A doubling of the current limit of Rs 2 lakh to Rs 4 lakh will be favourable to many borrowers, especially from cities like Mumbai, where most houses are priced at Rs 1 crore and above and the ticket sizes of the home loans are higher."

"We expect this budget to take up from where the last budget had left off.We hope that this budget further strengthens the mandate of the Fintech Committee to make India the top Fintech innovation centre in the world by ensuring policy to fast track paperless and presence-less access to finance."

"We also hope that this budget would have initiatives aimed at driving digital adoption and awareness by creating customer incentives for online approvals of credit products similar to currently available online discounts for digital insurance policies."

 Rahul Agarwal, director, Wealth Discovery/EZ Wealth:

"We expect the government to give some relaxation in the tax exemption threshold of Rs 2.5 lakh; we would not be surprised if the government raises it to Rs 5 lakh as the tax mop-up from people reporting income of Rs 10 lakh or less is not a big component to the government tax kitty."

"We also expect that there would be some relaxation under the Section 80C from the current Rs 1.5 lakh. The tax slabs may be tinkered too and for people falling in the Rs 500,000 to Rs 100,0000 there can be some relief in terms of lower taxes."

"The imposition of the LTCG (long-term capital gains) tax was a major dampener to the stock markets in the immediate aftermath; therefore we do not expect the government to make it more severe or stringent."

Dinesh Rohira, founder and CEO, 5nance:

"It is unlikely that government will do away with long-term capital gain tax on equity which came into effect last year. Hence, there is no major concerns apart from bring down the period on long-term capital gain for debt investment."

"It might also reconsider raising the standard deduction which didn't go well among middle-class in previous budget."