The Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley has said that the Corporate Tax Rate is proposed to be reduced from the current 30% to 25% over the next 4 years. In his Budget Speech in the Lok Sabha here today, Shri Jaitley said this is expected to lead to higher level of investment, higher growth and more jobs. The Minister however said that the reduction has to be accompanied by rationalization and removal of various kinds of exemptions and incentives which is leading to a large number of tax disputes. He pointed out that the effective collection of Corporate Tax today is about 23%.

 The Finance Minister said he did not start the process of reduction right away as he wanted to give advance notice that these changes will start from the next financial year.

 Shri Arun Jaitley also said that his government is moving forward on various fronts to implement Goods and Services Tax (GST) from the next year. GST, on which his government introduced a Bill in the last session of the parliament, is expected to play a transformative role in the way our economy functions. It will add buoyancy to our economy by developing a common Indian market and reducing the cascading effect on the cost of goods and services, Shri Jaitley added. The Finance Minister said that as a part of the movement towards GST the Education Cess and the Secondary and Higher Education Cess are to be subsumed in the Central Excise Duty.

Corporate tax reduction planned with phased cuts alongside exemption rationalisation; GST implementation to subsume education cesses. A phased corporate tax reduction is proposed alongside rationalisation and removal of exemptions to reduce disputes and broaden the tax base, with advance notice prior to implementation. Simultaneously, implementation of a Goods and Services Tax is planned to create a common market and reduce cascading taxation, and the Education Cess and Secondary and Higher Education Cess are to be subsumed into Central Excise Duty as part of the transition.