Income tax payers feel neglected for a reason

Despite past efforts to rationalize India's income tax regime, several anomalies persist. The Union budget for 2025-26 presents the finance minister an opportunity to correct them

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As the countdown to the budget for 2025-26 enters its final phase, it is about time individual taxpayers got a look-in from India's finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. They are yet to receive the kind of largesse given to corporates in 2019, when the rate of corporate income tax was cut from 30% to 22%. The budget to be presented on 1 February is an opportunity to correct this. India's post-covid K-shaped economic recovery makes the case stronger than ever before. Fast growth is the lodestar for every government, no doubt, but it must be achieved keeping in mind the all-important aspect of equity. In its effort to shift individual taxpayers to its new exemption-free regime of personal income tax, the Centre must be commended for dangling carrots but sparing the stick.