New Delhi, Feb. 27 :
New Delhi, Feb. 27:
The promo said: It's all about loving your parents. All the sneak previews for Yashwant Sinha's annual performance tomorrow are saying the opposite: You may have to do more than just love your parents.
Businessmen would still prefer Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham - the shed tears, feel good movie about the Great Indian Family - from the finance minister, none of whose budgets has been without the Bollywood touch. Because the alternative - never mind if it was a bigger hit - is Lagaan (tax).
That's a hit they, and those who will have to love their pensioner parents and come up with a little supporting cash now and then when the interest rate on small savings go down, can afford to miss.
Last year's Chori Chori, Chupke Chupke budget was an opening-week blockbuster that turned out to be a flop later. Industry, battered by a never-ending Bollywoodic slowdown saga, is in no mood for an encore of that kind of high on promises, low on delivery exercise this time.
We have been through a ghastly year of gham and, please, save Lagaan for the March 24 Oscars. That's the appeal on every tremulous business lip, gone blue with the recession chill.
And that's what they're most likely to get. The year before CCCC, Sinha had rolled out Hum Saath Saath Hain, appealing to Indians to pick up the Kargil bill. Farther back, his budget proposals - topped by a heartfelt promise, not kept, to make education free and compulsory at the
primary level - had come Dil Se.
According to wisecracks in his North Block office, this time the finance minister could well pick the Amitabh Bachchan-Shah Rukh Khan starrer K3G to slogan his sometimes pleasure, sometimes pain budget.
First the gham. Yesterday's Economic Survey and earlier budget leaks make it clear that interest rates on government-run small savings schemes will be cut.
This could trigger a similar lowering of bank deposit rates. A voluntary retirement scheme and moves to shut down unviable public sector units are also expected.
It may be curtains for Chori Chori, Chupke Chupke that clever companies and individuals indulge in perfectly legally by using various tax exemptions.
Flop budgets are prompting new thinking about blockbuster formulas. Why not try to fan a little inflation to tickle growth? Expect no revelation of this in the budget, but do be ready for some heavy-duty spending on roads, irrigation, power, education and healthcare. Some 60-65 per cent of the budget outlay could go into these developmental sectors.
Tired of waiting to hear the cash tills ringing, recession-rocked India Inc had better brace for some gham in a lowering of customs duties that could mean more imports and more competition for local products. Some excise and customs exemptions and rebates are also on the editing block.
Norms for calculating the much-reviled minimum alternate tax imposed on companies which declare zero profits and yet pay dividend are likely to be made stiffer.
But Sinha may well gamble a little a la P. Chidambaram, the United Front finance Minister who carved a place for himself in North Block history by gambling heavily on higher revenue collections through sharply lower taxes and failed miserably. And there lies the khushi.
This budget may see an increase in the upper limit of the income slab, paying the lowest tax level of 10 per cent, from Rs 60,000 to Rs 75,000-80,000.
Similarly, the slab for taxpayers paying at 20 per cent could go up from Rs 60,001 to Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 75,001-80,001 to Rs 1.8-2 lakh. The highest slab of 30 per cent will then be imposed on those earning incomes of more than Rs 1,80,000-Rs 2 lakh instead of those earning more than Rs 1.5 lakh.