Exemption limit for wealth tax increased, narrowing the tax base while retaining a one percent levy on net wealth.
The Direct Taxes Code Bill proposes to raise the exemption limit for wealth tax, retaining a 1 per cent levy on net wealth and limiting the tax to specified assets, with taxable net wealth defined as assets in excess of debts.

Direct Taxes Code reforms alter income tax exemptions, capital gains treatment, and tax compliance thresholds for taxpayers.
The Direct Taxes Code bill consolidates personal tax exemptions, restores HRA treatment, revises employer retirement contributions and NPS treatment, removes taxation of notional annual value for self occupied house property while permitting actual rent and specified interest deductions, treats remission of liabilities and carbon credit receipts as business income, increases weighted deduction for in house R&D, adjusts capital gains rules for equity holdings including short term scaling and retention of long term exemption, raises tax audit thresholds, revises MAT and DDT rates, and increases the wealth tax threshold with a set rate on excess.

Direct Taxes Code tax tables compare individual tax liabilities under existing Act and proposed Code, showing projected taxpayer savings.
Comparison of the proposed Direct Taxes Code and the existing Act by income tier showing, for individuals (other than women and senior citizens) and HUFs, women residents below 65, and senior citizens 65 or over: income level, tax under the Act, tax under the Code (excluding education cesses), and the computed tax savings, enabling direct numeric comparison of liabilities across regimes.

TDS reform: category-based withholding rates introduced with new TDS on mutual fund and life-insurer payouts, subject to thresholds.
Proposed TDS rates under a consolidated code set category-based withholding for resident deductees: salary at average annual tax rate; most contracts and services at 2% (with road goods carriage exempt if PAN furnished); routine receipts such as interest, dividends, commissions, professional fees, royalties and compensation at 10%; machinery rent at 2% and land/building rent at 10%; gambling and race winnings at 30%. New TDS introduced on mutual fund distributions and non-tax-exempt life-insurer payments with lower rates for individuals/HUFs and a small-payment threshold exemption.

Social security focus: consolidate flagship programmes and strengthen food safety, agricultural support, and civic campaigns.
The Prime Minister directed administrative focus to consolidating and fine tuning existing flagship programmes, prioritising a social security framework, food safety measures, and assured agricultural support via minimum support prices, while addressing inflation through executive action. He urged engagement with alienated groups, linked improved bilateral relations to counter terrorism action, promoted a nationwide Clean India campaign, and called for restrained public discourse, signaling managerial reform and implementation priorities for agencies overseeing rural development, public health, and internal security outreach.

Foreign direct investment cap in telecom clarified; owned-and-controlled test narrows indirect FDI attribution enabling more investment.
The regulatory framework sets a composite FDI cap of 74% in the telecom sector; a February 2009 methodological change excludes minority foreign holdings in investing companies from a licensee's composite FDI where those investing companies are owned and controlled by resident Indians, replacing an earlier proportionate attribution approach and thereby reducing reported composite foreign holdings in some licensees and creating headroom for further foreign investment.

Cost inflation index: annual updates adjust capital gains cost bases through statutory notifications for tax purposes.
The Cost Inflation Index (CII) is notified annually by the tax administration and amended each year to provide the indexation factor used in adjusting acquisition costs for tax purposes; the most recent amendment announced the CII for the financial year 2010-2011 as "711".

Excise duty on tobacco: collections increased and levy applies to manufacturers not growers, with no subsidy proposal.
Excise duty collections on tobacco products increased, with separate receipts reported for chewing tobacco and for other tobacco products and an aggregated higher total in the later year. The statement clarifies that excise duty is a tax on manufacture and tobacco growers are not liable to the levy, and that there is no proposal to extend cash subsidies to growers for input or labour costs.