Tax cut to benefit 99 per cent of tax filing companies, says Arun Jaitley
MSME are a major source of employment in the country and these measures are expected to boost jobs generation.
New Delhi: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday announced a slew of measures for the Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSME) hit by note ban and GST, including a cut in corporate tax rate to 25 per cent for businesses with a turnover of up to Rs 250 crore and setting a target of Rs 3 lakh crore for lending under the MUDRA scheme in 2018-19.
MSME are a major source of employment in the country and these measures are expected to boost jobs generation.
Mr Jaitley said that the cut in corporate tax will benefit the entire class of micro, small and medium enterprises which accounts for almost 99 per cent of companies filing their tax returns.
The estimate of revenue forgone due to this measure is Rs 7,000 crores during the financial year 2018-19. After this, out of about 7 lakh companies filing returns, about 7,000 companies which file returns of income and whose turnover is above Rs 250 crores will remain in 30 per cent slab.
“The lower corporate income tax rate for 99 percent of the companies will leave them with higher investible surplus which in turn will create more jobs,” he said.
Mr Jaitley proposed to set a target of Rs 3 lakh crore for lending under MUDRA for FY19.
“MUDRA Yojana launched in April, 2015 has led to sanction of '4.6 lakh crore in credit from 10.38 crore MUDRA loans. 76 per cent of loan accounts are of women and more than 50 per cent belong to SCs, STs and OBCs,” Mr Jaitley said.
He announced the government will contribute 12 per cent of the wages of the new employees in the EPF for all the sectors for next three years.