Budget 2010

Tax Slabs revised: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee revised the tax slabs for the next financial year on Friday, giving a relief to the Indian middle class.

Tax Slab 2010
Income-----------------Tax on income
0-1.6 Lakhs-----------------0%
1.6 Lakhs-5Lakhs---------10%
5.0 Lakhs-8.0Lakhs------20%
8.0 Lakhs + ---------------30%

The government would allow a deduction of up to Rs 20,000 for investments in long-term infrastructure bonds. The deduction would be in addition to Rs 100,000 allowed under Section 80C of India's Income Tax Act.

This was Mukherjee's fourth budget of his career as finance minister and the second for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in its second straight term after being voted back to office in May last year.

The market reaction, as the finance minister read his speech was positive, with the sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) ruling at 16,360.90 points, against the previous day's close at 16,254.2 points, with a gain of 106.7 points, or 0.65 percent.

Other highlights of 2010-11 budget:

• Taxes on large cars and SUVs increased 2 percent to 22 percent

• Concessional duty of 4 percent for solar power rickshaw developed by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research

• Concessional customs duty of 5 percent for cable TV operators for importing equipment

• Toys fully exempt from central excise duty

• Service sector tax retained at 10 percent to aid the introduction of GST; more services to be taxed

• Accredited news agencies exempt from service tax

• Basic duty of 5 percent on crude oil restored

• Tax on cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco increased

• Clean energy cess of Rs.50 per tonne on coal produced in India

• Rs. 26,000 crore revenue loss due to reduction of direct taxes

• Partial roll back of reduction in central excise duty

• Income up to Rs.1.6 lakh per year exempt from income tax; up to Rs.5 lakh to be taxed at 10 percent; income of Rs.5-8 lakh to be taxed at 20 percent and income above Rs.8 lakh to be taxed at 30 percent

• Two more centralized tax processing centers to be set up in addition to the one at Bangalore

• National Social Security Fund created for workers in unorganized sector with allocation of Rs.1,000 crore

• IT returns forms for individual tax payers to be further simplified

• Expenditure in 2010-11 estimated at 11,l8,749 crore

• Fiscal deficit estimated at 5.5 percent in 2010-11; an improvement of 1 percent over 2009-10

• Government to give Rs.1,000 for each National Pension Scheme account opened by workers in the unorganized sector

• Exclusive skill development programme for the textile sector

• Fifty percent hike in allocation for schemes for women and child development

• Rs.4,500 crore allocated for ministry of social justice and empowerment, a hike of 80 percent

• Rs.2,600 crore allocated for ministry of minorities affairs

• Rs.1,900 crore for Unique Identification Authority of India

• Rs.147,344 crore allocated for defense

• 2,000 youth to be recruited in central paramilitary forces

• Draft Food Security Bill prepared and will be put in the public domain

• Allocation on primary education raised from Rs.26,800 crore to Rs.31,300 crore

• Banking facilities to be provided to all habitations with a population of 2,000 and more

• Rs.66,100 crore allocated for rural development in 2010-11; Rs.40,100 crore for National Rural Employment Scheme; RS.48,000 crore for Bharat Nirman

• Rs.1,270 crore allocated for Rajiv Awas Yojana for slum dwellers, up from Rs.150 crore, an increase of 700 percent with the aim of creating a slum free India.

• Forty-six percent of plan allocations in 2010-11 will be for infrastructure development

• Coal Regulatory Authority to be set up to benchmark standards of performance

• Allocation for new and renewable energy sector increased 61 percent from Rs.620 crore to Rs.1,000 crore in 2010-11

• National Clean Energy Fund to be established

• Rs.200 crore allocated as special package for Goa to prevent erosion and increase green cover

• Government committed to growth of SEZs

• Four-pronged strategy for growth of agricultural sector

• Rs.200 crore to be provided in 2010-11 for climate-resilient agricultural initiative

• Involvement of private sector in grain storage to continue for another two years

• In view of drought and floods, debt repayment period extended to June 2010

• Five more mega food processing projects in addition to 10 existing ones

• FDI flows in April-December 2009 $20.9 billion

• FDI policy to be made more user-friendly with one comprehensive document

• Apex level financial stability council to be set up for banking sector

• Indian Banking Association to give additional licenses to private players

• Provision for further capital for regional rural banks

• Roadmap for reducing public debt in six months

• Implementation of direct tax code from April 2011

• Government actively engaged in finalizing structure of general sales tax regime; hopes to implement it from April 2011

• New fertilizer policy from April 2010; will lead to improved productively and more income for farmers

• Economy stabilized in first quarter of 2009-10; strong rebound in second quarter; overall growth at 7.2 and could be higher when Q3 and Q4 are taken into account

• Export figures for January encouraging

• Hope to breach 10 percent growth mark in not too distant future

• Government set in motion steps to bring down food inflation

• Need to review stimulus package; need to make growth more broad-based

• India has weathered global economic crisis well; Indian economy in far better position than it was a year ago. In 2009 Indian economy faced grave uncertainty; delay in southwest monsoon had undermined agricultural production

• First challenge now is to quickly revert to 9 percent growth and then aim for double digit growth; need to make recovery more broad based

• Second challenge is to make growth more inclusive; have to strengthen food security

• Third challenge is to overcome weakness in government's public delivery mechanism

Microsoft to end support for Win XP

NEWS: On July 13, 2010, Microsoft is officially ending its support for Windows XP SP2, windows 2000 server, and windows 2000 client. This means, that the company will no longer be providing hotfixes, security updates or add-ons for this OS applications.

IMPACT: This definitely means something valuable for big companies using 25+ computers. They won't be getting any security or support for their industry compliance win case of any issues. For them, better option is to upgrade to Windows Vista or Windows 7.
But for small 2 room companies, or individual professionals, or also household users, this is not a big thing to worry. Because the current security levels should be enough for their work continuity. Also, all the till-date updates and fixes will also remain available to public for their use in future as well.

HISTORY: Microsoft has done similar thing in past, when support to XP SP1 was stopped on Oct 10, 2006. No more new updates, but still the older ones are available on their download site.

FUTURE: Its again in news, that Microsoft will end its support for XP SP3 as well on April 8, 2014. It means, complete XP will be a past phase in Microsoft's business lines.

REASON: The reason for this shift from XP to later versions (Vista and WIN 7), as suggested by Mr Scheiber from 'workstart.com', will allow company to focus on upcoming technologies, and increasing challenges in their upkeep and maintenance.