Union Budget 2020 LIVE Updates:
Union Budget 2020 LIVE Updates: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is back with a red cloth bahi khata to present the budget. The Narendra Modi government is likely to increase state spending on infrastructure and offer some income tax incentives when Nirmala Sitharaman reads her Budget 2020 speech in Parliament at 11am, aiming to get growth back up from its lowest in a decade.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced increasing customs duty on imported footwear and furniture. In her second Budget presentation, the finance minister also imposed health cess on import of medical equipment. 

Budget 2020 - Budget Highlights 2020
Budget 2020 LIVE Updates:  The Budget 2020 brought cheer for the middle class as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an optional income tax rate cut. Under the new, optional regime, those with a taxable income between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 7.5 lakh will pay 10 percent tax, against the present 20 percent. The new tax regime is optional for those willing to forego all exemptions. In the Budget, the government also announced that it will sell a part of its holding in LIC via an IPO. The nominal growth of GDP for 2020-2021 has been pegged at 10 per cent. The fiscal deficit target pegged at 3.5% of GDP

Presenting the Budget 2020 in Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Nirmala listed three core themes for the Budget — Aspirational India, Economic Development For All and A Caring Society. Stressing on doubling farmers’ income by 2022, FM Sitharaman presented a 16-point plan for agricultural growth. While Rs 69,000 crore has been allocated for the healthcare sector, Rs 99,300 crore for education in FY21. “A total of Rs 3,000 crore will be given for skill development,” she said. FM Sitharaman also announced that the insurance cover for bank deposits has been raised to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 1 lakh.

With the 2020 Budget speech, Sitharaman broke her own record of the longest Budget speech in 2019. Peppered with a Kashmiri poem, Tamil couplets, the 2020 speech went on for over 2 hours and 30 minutes. She cut short her Budget speech after feeling unwell towards the end of the presentation.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex plummeted 988 points on Saturday to close below the key 40,000-mark, led by an intense broad-based selloff after the Union Budget for 2020-21 failed to live up to market expectations.

Budget 2020 - Budget Highlights 2020
New Tax slab (without exemptions):
No tax: 0-2.5
5% between 2.5-5 lakh
10% tax between 5-7.5 lakh
15% between 7.5-10 lakh
20% between 10 lakh-12.5 lakh
25% between 12.5-15 lakh
30% between above 15 lakh

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