SMPL

Pune (Maharashtra) [India], February 10: Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development (SCMHRD) organised Nitishastra, a pre-Budget panel discussion, to deliberate on key expectations from the forthcoming Union Budget and examine economic priorities impacting India's growth trajectory. The debate featured SCMHRD faculty members CA Sunit Joshi, Dr Pankaj Sharma and Dr Shagun Thukral, who offered academic insights and practical perspectives on policy choices likely to shape household decisions and business sentiment.

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Expectations discussed pre-Budget included the possibility of changes to personal taxation, particularly slab revisions and the relevance of standard deductions, as well as how taxpayers might rebalance portfolios between fixed-income instruments and equities in a changing interest-rate environment. The panel also noted that fiscal choices would need to balance growth support with macro pressures, including inflation persistence, global uncertainty, and supply-chain disruptions.

Post-announcement, SCMHRD's reading of the Finance Bill, 2026 suggests the dominant "rate message" is stability rather than sweeping resets, especially when viewed across the transition from the Income-tax Act, 1961 (AY 2026-27) to the Income-tax Act, 2025 framework (tax year beginning 1 April 2026). For AY 2026-27, the Bill retains the familiar basic-exemption thresholds for individuals (₹2.5 lakh / ₹3 lakh / ₹5 lakh) while separately specifying ₹4,00,000 for taxpayers covered under section 115BAC(1A). Importantly, the same ₹4,00,000 threshold is carried into the "tax year" regime under section 202 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, reinforcing continuity into what stakeholders commonly refer to as the next cycle (AY 2027-28).

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Where expectations aligned: the framework signals predictability in personal taxation during a structural transition. Where expectations diverged: the kind of broad, headline-grabbing overhaul that was actively debated in pre-Budget deliberations did not emerge as a dominant feature of the rates framework referenced in the Bill.

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