Budget 2025-26-wl-3283-Union Budget 2025-26: Tax Policy Thrusts and Some Challenges

Union Budget 2025–26 reduced the direct tax liability. It is a continuity of the directional changes proposed in the Long-term Fiscal Policy,1985. The structural change in the tax system and the tax administrative changes further strengthened the trust first principle. In the New Income Tax Bill, as most of the old provisions continue, how much the clauses of the new bill are litigation resilient needs to be tested after it becomes the law and applied by the field officers. However, on the expenditure front, there needs to be a review and more flexibility in implementation of some of the centrally-sponsored schemes.