President approves Interim Budget: Finance Act Notified [Read Act]

Budget - Parliament - Taxscan

The President has approved the interim budget 2019 finance bill has been assented to by the President on February 21 thereby making it an Act. By this, the proposals made in the budget announced by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal has become law.

The interim budget had proposed on 1st February increased the standard deduction for salaried employees to Rs 50,000 for FY19-20 from Rs 40,000 in FY18- 19 and provide a full rebate of tax payable to all those earning up to Rs 5 lakh taxable income starting FY19-20.

Other important new laws, proposals include an exemption for Long-term capital gains on the sale of residential house property from income tax if the capital gains are invested in two residential house properties in India. The amount of capital gain is limited to Rs 20,000,00. This benefit is available only once in a lifetime of the taxpayer.

The Finance Bill further increased the Tax deducted at source (TDS) threshold for interest income from Rs 10,000 to Rs 40,000 per financial year. Further, TDS threshold for rental income to be increased from Rs 180,000 to Rs 240,000 per financial year.

Also, the budget proposes to exempt the levy of income tax on notional rent on a second self-occupied house. Currently, income tax on notional rent is payable if one has more than one self-occupied house. However, the persons already receiving rent from the second property may not get this exemption as the budget proposes to exempt ‘notional income’ only.

All the above changes shall come into force on the 1st day of April 2019.

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