There is an urgent need to consider outflow of salaries and perks of bureaucrats and politicians. Why should they have so many facilities; free travel, electricity, ACs. phones, cars etc. Can their number not be cut down by 40 - 50%? Will we be less efficient? Shyam Dasgupta TDS on small incomes is generating unnecessary paperwork for all. Does it make sense? Consider cost-benefit of this infructuous work. Govt is perhaps spending more than benefit, tax refunds have been delayed beyond reason?? Why?? Preeti Mukherjee


Those who can spend on big luxury cars (more than one) and gas guzzlers at nation’s cost. Travel abroad for fun. Have big residential (palatial houses) and cause drain on scarce resources) Have a close look at the affluent big farm house owners and where they got their wealth??? Tax the big fish heavily. Gautam Sansi

The main stress of the Budget should be in creating more jobs for the unemployed youth of the country There should be a limit on the salary and perks of top level executives in private sector. There should be no clubbing of various incomes such as interest, dividend, income from property etc and each should be taxed separately for example income from bank interest could be taxed at a flat rate of 10% at source. Similarly income from property could be taxed at about 10-15%. Rohit Chopra
Kindly do not break the backbone of India by levying more taxes on the salaried class, and by taking off all the savings incentives. Vivek Nair

Please ensure adequate medical, education and social security to all tax paying citizens. Indranil Hazra

The income tax slabs need immediate changes. Firstly, there is no need for the 10 percent slab. Secondly, the exemption level should be increased, not just by 10 or 20 thousand, but substantially. Taxable income upto Rs. 4 lakh may exempted. Income over and above that level should be charged at 20 % (no surcharge). This would motivate people to declare their true income, thereby, expanding the tax base. Dileep Aiyer Salaried class should be given some relief this time as they have not got for the past three years (including those have more than 5 lakh per annum). Rajan Shankar

Price of LPG should not be increased. Ruchi Singh

Increase the tax-base. 4-wheelers are the best bet to rope in new asssessees. Give tax benefits to purchasers of new cars, just like the sops given on housing loans. This way, the auto industry gets a fillip as well as the tax department gets a fair deal as well. Pankaj Mathur

This time the Finance Minister should ask the Income-tax authorities to declare that any immovable property, constructed during the last 8 years, not assessed by the Income-tax department, shall be treated public property. There would be no more need to tax other persons or to increase taxes. Rajinder Paul Sud Make this Budget a mixture of reforms and at the same time for the upliftment of the middle class. Shurti Patni


The current benefit of interest on housing loans to the tune of Rs 150,000 to be reduced from your income should not be abolished. I have taken a housing loan and I do not want to be cheated by the government if it falls back on its word given to all. I had made my financial planning taking into consideration the above and had planned my cash flows for the future years accordingly. I should not be penalised. Rohit Mehta

During the year 2002-03 4% of SAD exemption has been removed against DEPB Scrips. Advisable to exempt SAD under DEPB scrips. Chandrapal Rao


Rather than making income of Rs. 1,00,000/- per annum and less exempt from tax, finance minister should increase the rate of rebate and deductions in savings enabling Indians to make more savings and should also increase the area of savings from government schemes to private schemes like shares debentures and other stock. This will also make the companies’ task of collecting money from share market easier and people will also divert their funds from un-organised sector towards organised sector. In this case, finance minister can bring the income from these savings/investments under taxable category and generate funds. Manish Bhatia There is no need for various slabs and different rates of taxes for diifereent slabs. Just say that upto Rs 72000. per annum is exempted and thereafter I.Tax should be 20% of the income. P Chandra

The focus should be to increase consumer spending, otherwise the industry will not spend on building capacities, which in turns results in a lower Income and growth rates. The primary investment objective today of the salaried class is to pay taxes, this is the section of the populace paying the highest amount of tax. Direct taxes should be reduced and indirect taxes increased and the method of collecting the taxes should be revamped to recover the maximum amount from indirect taxes, this would result in an increase in government income covering the reduction in direct taxes. Suraj Shukla


IT structure for the salaried class should be eased out so that one does not feel the pinch specially seeing the business class manipulating statistics so as to pay less tax compared to the salaried class. Vineet Kumar


Bring in tax rebate for supporting dependent parents financially. Ashish Rakhit As per the recommendations of the Kelkar committee, the most vulnerable and defenseless portion of the tax net is targeted once again. Once again, the average salaried class individual working for a public sector company has to pay taxes so that the revenue of the government stays intact to pay for corrupt bureaucrats and highly inefficient spending. The time has come to target big business instead of the salaried class and widen the tax net so that the ones with the real money pay taxes and contribute to the economy in general. A complete revamp of the taxation system is required. The Kelkar committee recommendations will only add to the woes! Shashank Atom

Printed post cards used for communicating the death message of a person to their friends and relatives are treated as printed post cards used for commercial purposes and charged heavily by the postal staff. In this budget I suggest FM to clarify this difference. If FM can make this free of charge, it will be still better. Govt. will not loose any revenue, but will gain a lot of good will from the people. Deepak Seth


Protect Indian industries which have suffered because of cheap imports from, say China, by imposing additional duties on such goods and giving some incentives to such industries. Keeping a strict curb on unionisim and also on industrialists especially those who embezzle public money. B Blakhani The prime thrust of the Budget should be growth. The government should initiate steps to reduce fiscal deficit, thereby providing for more funds for development. This budget should be dedicated to agricultural sector as there is a huge employment and growth potential in this sector. Income tax should be further rationalised and the method of calculating perquisites should be changed. Interest rates on PPF, NSC and other such instruments should be cut further so that there is further reduction in lending rates. Vivek Sharma

The maximum IT slab should be limited to 25 %, like in developed countries. Indians working abroad with NRI status & not living in India for more than a month in one financial year, but paid indian salaries in INR, should be given some concession on Income Tax, as it is done in USA/UK etc...As these NRIs are not utilising any of the country’s resources, but land-up paying 30 % tax. Aman Randhawa

This is a typical scenario of a house hold whose monthly income (take home pay) is around 12000/- rupees. Establishment charges-1500 Educational Fees (2 Children) 500 Transport 1000 Rs. Houshould Expenditure 4000Rs Fuel Charges (Electricy) in a state like gujarat where each unit of current costs around 4.20Rs. Rs.800 Telephone Charges Rent +Calls =500Rs. If Mr Jaswant singh opines that the above expenditure mentioned is a high life style and they are the ones who should be taxed so that the richer class which has more dishonest money than earned money than one can never make any suggestions towards the fair cause. If Mr,Jaswant singh is not deaf and does not wish to be blind then he should give some relief to the bleeding middle class whose only strength are education and integrity. Radha Seshadri We hope LTC facility which was suspended two years ago will be introduced in this Budget. Sneh Lata


Respected finance minister, please start taxing rich agriculturists, with this you will atleast be able to be liberal with people who live on a salary. Jai Prakash Das


Design a scheme for short term capital gain (like the ones for 54-EC).That will make the share trading a lot more attractive as well as transparent apart from making available a lot of money for Central Government projects. Prasad J.


Immediately Reduce the Stamp duty from 13% to 2% on house registration . Housing industry is what is going to push the GDP growth of India . Housing Industry has helped banking sector, Cement sector , Iron and Steel sector and all other Infrastructure sector of the Economy. Neeraj Kumar Bansal One of the prime concerns of government servants is the education of their children. There is wide disparity between what an officer spends (Rs 500- Rs 2000) per month and what he is reimbursed (Rs 40).Besides the fees, tution costs are almost as much. This places a severe strain on honest government officers. Some govt officers when posted abroad are paid realistic education allowance. Can the education allowance be reviewd. Sunil Nanda


It may be seen that the Dearness Allowance from 01-07-2002 has been increased by 3% and it is expected that another installment of around 4% will become due from 01-01-2003. As such annual increase in inflation is 7%. Thus there is no merit in lowering the interest rate on Provident Funds and other Small Saving Scheme. Mahesh Nagpal


To encourage the use of computers and help children and housewives learn about computers, purchase of PCs can be encouraged if the service class people are also given the depreciation benefit. After all, they have to keep upgrading it also. Astha Sankhyan


The computer prices should be brought down . Even the prices of laptop should also be brought down. Cost of communication should be reduced to the benifit of consumers. Retired people should be given more benefit. Number of old homes should be increased. Arvind Sharma The cheque bouncing rules for criminal offence also has not proved to be very effective. The major problem is delay in judicial process. The cheque bouncing is a criminal offence. It is felt that banks should penalise the offenders by closing their accounts in case the cheque bounces. The offenders shall not be eligible for further opening of bank account till settlement of earlier cases. O P Bhaskar


Remove double taxation of dividends. Vikram Jagtiani

Petrol price should be reduced. More interest should be paid on Providend Fund. Employment opputunities investment should be done. Rashmi