Budget: A little for all, but wait for a long haul
Markets lost on the first four days of the week and extended losses for five consecutive days before a complete turnaround happened on Friday, which was the first day of the August futures series.
The Union Government brought back the Long Term Capital Gains (LTCG) tax on Thursday, 1 February. In his Budget Speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that there will be a tax on LTCG at the rate of 10 per cent for gains exceeding Rs 1 lakh.
Jaitley said that reforms and incentives by the Government has made the equity market buoyant.
“The total amount of exempted capital gains from listed shares and units is around Rs 3,67,000 crores as per returns filed for AY 2017-18,” he said underlining that the gain has accrued to corporates and LLPs.
Advertisement
Arguing in favour of bringing back a tax on LTCG, he said that the return on investment in equity is already quite attractive even without tax exemption.
“However, all gains up to 31 January 2018 will be grandfathered,” he said.
“I also propose to introduce a tax on distributed income by equity oriented mutual fund at the rate of 10 per cent,” Jaitley said.
The announcement of the LTCG had a negative impact on the share market. Both the Sensex and the Nifty took a plunge. At around 12.45 pm, the wider Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) fell by 59.70 points or 0.54 per cent to trade at 10,968 points.
On the BSE, the barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) shed 411.99 points or 1.15 per cent to 35,553.03 points.
Advertisement
