Key features of Budget 2015-16

Key features of Budget 2015-16:

• Simplification of tax procedures.
• Central excise/Service tax assesses to be allowed to use digitally signed invoices and maintain record electronically.
• Proposal to reduce corporate tax from 30% to 25% over the next four years, starting from next financial year.
• Efforts on various fronts to implement GST from next year.
• Service-tax exemption for services of pre-conditioning, pre-cooling, ripening etc. of fruits and vegetables
• Transport of goods for export by road from factory to land customs station exempt from service tax.
• Transportation of agricultural produce to remain exempt from Service-tax.
• National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), to be established with an annual flow of `20,000 crores to it.
• Tax free infrastructure bonds for the projects in the rail, road and irrigation sectors.
• PPP mode of infrastructure development to be revisited and revitalised.
• Micro Units Development Refinance Agency (MUDRA) Bank, with a corpus of `20,000 crores, and credit guarantee corpus of `3,000 crores to be created.
• Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) to be established in NITI to provide Innovation Promotion Platform involving academicians, and drawing upon national and international experiences to foster a culture of innovation , research and development. A sum of Rs 150 crore will be earmarked.
• (SETU) Self-Employment and Talent Utilization) to be established as Techno-financial, incubation and facilitation programme to support all aspects of start-up business. Rs 1000 crore to be set aside as initial amount in NITI.
• New All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) to be set up in J&K, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and Assam. Another AIIMS like institutions to be set up in Bihar
• A post graduate institute of Horticulture Research & Education is to be set up in Amritsar