Letters to The Editor — February 4, 2025

A closer look at the Budget

The Budget’s announcement of increasing the personal income-tax exemption limit has been projected as a relief for the middle class. However, while it may benefit a fraction of the population, the story lies in the larger economic reality.

The so-called “relief” benefits only a minuscule segment of taxpayers, while the vast majority of Indians, including lower-income groups, remain untouched by any direct relief.

The poor and lower-middle-class populations, who barely earn enough to sustain themselves, end up paying more in indirect taxes on essential goods and services. If the government truly intends to provide relief to the common man, the focus must shift towards rationalising GST rates on essential goods, particularly food items, medicines, and utilities, rather than presenting superficial tweaks in income-tax slabs that benefit only a select few. A progressive tax structure, coupled with GST reforms that shield the economically weaker sections, is the only way to ensure equitable taxation. It is high time that tax policies prioritise inclusive economic growth rather than optics that favour a limited population segment.

Pavithra M.,

Tiruchi

Populism can be fiercely competitive when it comes to poll-oriented freebies, because all parties indulge in this culture of giving away what is taken by way of taxes from the rich and the middle classes. It hardly needs to be reminded that the present dispensation has been voted in thrice, largely on account of a northern (Indian) bias.

Gregory Fernandes,

Mumbai

The NDA government has not stopped patting itself on the back for the rise in the exemption limit for income-tax with the Finance Minister also saying she had a ‘tough time convincing the bureaucrats in her ministry’. This is pure balderdash (“We heard the voice of the middle class, says Nirmala Sitharaman on tax relief”, February 3). It is not so much the voice of the middle class that influenced the decision of the Finance Minister but the Delhi elections. The voice of the middle class has been a cry in the wilderness in all the Budgets presented by the NDA so far.

C.V. Aravind,

Bengaluru