India’s First Post-GST Union Budget Likely on 1 February

The Union Budget 2018-19 would be the last full Budget of the BJP-led NDA government before the 2019 general polls.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is likely to present India’s first post-GST and the current government’s last full Budget on 1 February next year.

The Budget session of Parliament may begin on 30 January with President Ram Nath Kovind addressing the Joint Session of both the Houses of Parliament, a senior government official said.

The Economic Survey, detailing the state of the economy, is likely to be tabled on 31 January and the Union Budget may be presented the following day, he said.

Scrapping the colonial-era tradition of presenting the Budget at the end of February, Jaitley had for the first time presented the annual accounts on 1 February this year.

The Budget presentation was advanced by a month to ensure that proposals take effect from 1 April, the beginning of the new financial year.

Also, the nearly century old tradition of having a separate budget for the railways was scrapped and merged with the general budget.

The tentative schedule being drawn up for the Budget Session means that there would be less than a month’s gap between two sessions of Parliament. The Winter Session, which begins on 15 December, will end on 5 January.

The official said that at least on one occasion in the past – in 1976, when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister, had the winter session spilled into January. But in those days, the Budget was presented on the last day of February and so there was one-month gap between the two sessions.

The Union Budget 2018-19 would be the last full Budget of the BJP-led NDA government before the 2019 General Elections.

As per the practice, a vote-on-account or approval for essential government spending for a limited period is taken in the election year and a full-fledged budget presented by the new government.

The official said this will be the first budget post implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.

Even though independent India's biggest tax reform of GST was implemented from July 1, the Budget for 2017-18 (April- March), had followed the practice of tax revenue projections under the heads of customs duty, central excise and service tax alongside direct tax numbers.

With excise duty and service tax being subsumed in the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the classifications in the forthcoming budget may undergo change, the official said.

While a new classification for revenues to be accrued from GST will be included in the Budget for next fiscal, for the current year two sets of accounting may be presented — one for actual accruals during April-June for excise, customs and service tax, and the other for July-March period for GST and customs duty.

(The article has been edited for length.)

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