Budget 2023: What does the middle-class want

Budget 2023

As February 1st approaches, expectations are soaring high. Here's what the middle-class wants:

Income tax
One of the biggest expectations this time is a change in the tax slabs. Several tax experts are of the opinion that a revision in the existing income tax slabs will greatly benefit taxpayers. Others expect that the basic exemption limit could be hiked from 2.5 lakh rupees to 5 lakh rupees.

Budget 2023 Tax Slabs

Health insurance
Another big focus especially after the pandemic, remains health insurance, a segment that is even now, highly under-penetrated. Experts strongly believe that the govt should ensure more people are encouraged to buy health insurance by increasing the deduction limit under section 80D from the current 25,000 rupees to 1 lakh rupees.

Focus on creating jobs
Citizens across the board are hoping that job creation remains a big focus in this budget. Given that layoffs are trending especially in the western countries currently, a report shows that one in every four Indians is worried about the a job layoff. With that, experts believe that government should step in by aggressively expanding job-oriented sectors such as manufacturing, infrastructure in Tier-2, Tier-3, and Tier-4 cities.

Home loans interest rates
Fourth on our list is the home loan interest deduction limit. In order to boost affordability especially amid rising interest rates, the middle-class is hoping for the tax deduction limit against home loan interest to be hiked from 2 lakh rupees to 5 lakh rupees.

Tution fee
Another demand to move tuition fees of children to a separate provision from the section 80C deductions. The provision is already saturated with several options including various tax saving investments and expenses but has a limit of just 1.5 lakh rupees.

Section 80 C
That brings us to the last point on our list. An increase in the section 80 C limit. The 1.5 lakh investment limit gets exhausted quickly. And expectations are that this limit gets increased to at least 2 or 2.5 lakh rupees. This will not just help taxpayers save more but also boost investments.