Budget 2012-13

- Income tax slab - Rs 2 lakh zero tax, Rs 2-5 lakh – 10 percent, Rs 5-10 lakh – 20 percent and above Rs 10 lakh – 30 percent. Interest income from banks tax-free upto Rs 10,000. No change in corporate taxes.

- School education exempt from service tax.

- Securities transaction tax (STT) – the stock exchange toll fee for buying and selling share – is cut by 20 percent. Just crumbs for traders. STT is now 0.1 percent for delivery trades.

- Service tax to have negative list – only 17 services exempt. Your five-star barber may apply service tax.

- Bollywood exempted from service tax in some copyright.

- Overall service taxes raised to 12 percent. This will surely push up inflation since services account for 59 percent of the GDP. General excise also up to 12 percent. Big cars to cost more – excise up from 22 to 24 percent.

- Branded silver jewellery fully exempt from excise duty.

- imposition of custom duty on jems and color stones @ 2%.

- Basic customs up on gold doubled. Also on platinum. Sin taxes also up on big bang some cigarettes and bidis. Small customes cuts on cigarettes, too.