Nirmala Sitharaman announces major steps to boost economy: Top 10 takeaways

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday announced major steps to revive economic growth amid growing concern over economic slowdown. 

In a much-anticipated press conference, Nirmala Sitharaman announced several measures including a rollback of enhanced surcharge on foreign portfolio investors levied in the Budget. She also announced that Angel tax on start-ups has been lifted.

She also announced that the banks will now transfer the benefits of repo rate cuts by the RBI to the borrowers. This move is expected to bring the home and auto loan rates and EMIs down.

Here are the the key announcements made by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman: 

Government will withdraw enhanced surcharge on long-term/short-term capital gains arising from transfer of equity shares/units for foreign and domestic investors.   Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) violation will be not be treated as criminal offence. Banks have decided to pass on rate cuts by RBI to borrowers by passing on all Repo Rate cuts into their MCLR. They have launched external benchmark-linked loan products. This will result in reduced EMI for housing, vehicles and other retail loans. BS-IV vehicles purchased up to March 31, 2020 will remain operational for the entire duration of registration. Government shall lift the ban on purchase of new vehicles for replacing all old vehicles by departments.  All old tax notices will be decided by October 1 or will be uploaded again through the centralised system. Income tax scrutiny will be faceless and randomised across the country from Vijayadashami. Centre to infuse upfront Rs 70,000 crore into public sector banks to enable release of Rs 5 lakh crore liquidity in the market. Housing finance companies will now get an additional Rs 20,000 crore from the NHB. All pending GST refund due to MSMEs shall be paid within 30 days. In future all GST refunds shall be paid within 60 days from the date of application. NBFCs to be permitted to use the Aadhaar authenticated bank KYC to avoid repeated processes. It has also been decided to set up a dedicated cell under Member of CBDT for addressing the problems of startups. A startup having any income-tax issue can approach the cell for quick resolution of the same.

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