Income tax buoyancy aided budget relief: Finance secy

Finance secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said the tax buoyancy will offset impact of the cuts

- Rhik Kundu & Gireesh Chandra Prasad

Robust buoyancy in personal income tax revenue helped offering tax relief to individuals in the FY26 Union budget and this is expected to offset the impact of the substantial tax cut, finance secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said on Sunday. In a post-budget interview with Mint, Pandey also said the government's push for deregulation could see them being implemented as mandatory reforms, which states are required to implement to qualify for a share of the Centre's 50-year interest-free capex loans.

Meanwhile, the 16th Finance Commission, headed by economist Arvind Panagariya, will give guidance on the state governments' debt reduction road map, with the central government set to reduce the debt-GDP ratio to 50% by March 2031 from the current 57.1%, he added.

A highlight of finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman's budget presented on Saturday was the raising of the tax-free income limit to ₹12 lakh (or ₹12.75 lakh for salaried individuals, factoring in a basic deduction of ₹75,000).