Budget 2023 News Live Updates: Healthcare tech industry body seeks cut in customs duty, removal of health cess on medical devices

he Indian government may find it difficult to maintain the current growth momentum in direct taxes in the next fiscal year as GDP growth is expected to be lower, a government official said on Friday.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Feb 1, that will include projections for next year’s tax collection. Currently, net direct tax collection are growing at 19.5% year on year.

Industry body Ficci has sought an increase in the import duty on aluminium and aluminium products to at least 12.5 per cent in the upcoming budget 2023-24, stating that the move will help curb dumping of aluminium products and encourage growth of the domestic manufacturing and recycling.

The present import duty on aluminium and aluminium products is 10 per cent. Aluminium, a resilient metal that retains its fundamental properties even when recycled, is widely utilised.

However, in recent years, there has been a visible surge in subpar aluminium imports, especially from China which constitutes over 85 per cent of downstream aluminium imports at present, Ficci said in a statement.

Moreover, India is also seeing aluminium imports from the US, the UK, Malaysia and the Middle East. Several of these nations support their domestic industries with concessions and benefits, including low interest loans and cheaper power tariffs.

The upcoming Union Budget should not only create a roadmap for sustainable growth in the logistics sector but also incentivise the industry to adopt sustainable practices, operators said on Thursday.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to present the Union Budget 2023-24 in the Lok Sabha on February 1.

FedEx Express Senior Vice-President Middle East Indian Subcontinent and Africa (MEISA) Operations Kami Viswanathan in a statement said, “We recommend the implementation of zero rating of Goods and Services Tax for all international transportation services.

“Most of the international GST/VAT legislations ‘zero-rate’ international freight transportation services. This would facilitate trade and align India with international tax practices as well as reduce logistics costs.”

During the upcoming budget session of the Parliament, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman might present the Union Budget 2023-24 at the new Parliament building on February 1. Preparations for presenting this year’s Budget is going on in full swing.

According to sources, the construction work for the new Parliament House is almost complete and is expected to be ready by the end of January.

Therefore, preparations have also started for the upcoming Budget session to be held at the new Parliament building.

Although a final decision on this count is yet to be taken, the Lok Sabha Secretariat has already started making new identity cards for the MPs of different parties for entry into the new Parliament House.

Warrior Moms, a national citizen action group, has written to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday demanding provisions in the Union Budget 2023-24 to make cooking gas affordable to poor households across India.

The group has claimed that the letter has been endorsed by more than 20 noted personalities, including Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, TMC MP Saugata Roy, DMK MP D Ravikumar, National Conference MP Farooq Abdulla, NCP MP Vandana Chavan and Justice (retired) Anjana Prakash.

“The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojna (PMUY) introduced in 2016 has given over 8 crore households access to subsidised LPG connections. However, the insufficiency of the subsidy combined with the difficulty of getting a timely refill hinders millions of households from switching to LPG,” the letter read.

Wall Street major Goldman Sachs does not expect any significant reforms to be announced in this budget, but some details on incentives for ‘Make in India’, a roadmap on direct tax code implementation, and rationalization of subsidies, particularly fertilizers.

The Indian Union budget will be presented on February 1 as the final full-year budget under the current administration before the national elections in mid-2024.

This comes at a time when the government is trying to weigh expenditure priorities around: welfare spending before the general elections, the reduction of subsidies as commodity prices have declined from previous highs, incentives for promoting manufacturing in India, continuing the infrastructure build out and a higher allocation for defence, Goldman Sachs said in a report.