Advance tax reform: streamlined instalments, higher exemption thresholds and stricter interest and penalty rules for defaults. Finance Act, 1969 revises tax rates and withholding/advance tax schedules and amends income tax, wealth tax and surtax laws. It treats listed public companies as widely held for tax purposes, overhauls the advance tax regime (raising exemption limits, allowing gross TDS set offs, consolidating instalments, permitting payers to vary payments on self estimates, imposing obligations to pay higher self estimates, tightening interest calculations and expanding penalties), enlarges savings and deduction provisions (including new sections for technical fees and foreign receipts of creative professionals), extends development rebate priority treatment to cotton and jute textiles and expands wealth tax to agricultural property subject to specified exemptions.