Upcoming 2008-09 budget.

People of India is very eager for the coming budget of session 2008 . As it is well known that Union Budget for 2008-09 is the last budget for the present government. So it is very likely that Union Budget for 2008-09 will be a people friendly budget.
The Union Budget 2008-09 will focus on sustained balanced growth, while addressing the short-term challenges of inflation, slowdown in gross domestic product growth and elections, according to Sangeeta Purushottam, Head-Institutional Business, Religare Enterprises.

A report suggest that there could be tax reforms and fiscal discipline to be addressed in this budget. For the stock markets, we do not expect any major negative surprises . Changes in direct and indirect taxes, however could have some impact on the market sentiments.”

Exchanges charge securities transaction tax of 0.125 per cent in capital market segment, from June 1, 2006. In the derivatives segment, the STT rate is 0.0133 per cent. “A key feature of this budget is that it is the last budget to be presented by the current government before the general elections next year. Therefore, it could well be a 'populist‘ budget with pay-offs for voters in terms of lower taxes,” the institutional business head said.
Another possibility is that tax rates are left unchanged for corporate, but there could be a host of announcements on increased outlays to social sectors like education and health. The key challenges that this budget also needs to address are inflation, the slowdown in GDP-particularly in the manufacturing sector, a much tougher global environment and its impact on growth through the external sector, and a rising subsidy burden, which does not fully reflect in the fiscal deficit, Purushottam says in the report.
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