• Notification Date: 08.02.2022
• Notification No: N/A

Budget 2022 signals GST Cuts: Marcellus’ Saurabh Mukherjea

Saurabh Mukherjea has commented at a post-Budget panel discussion that was hosted by Moneycontrol on the new Budget stating that the Union Budget has prepared the grounds of GST cuts in a way that “anti-rich” and “anti-foreign” investor taxes will not pass in the run of the government. According to Saurabh Mukherjea, the Founder of Marcellus Investment Managers, there are three investing themes that can be derived from the new Budget. One of them is the financing of the recovery. This method is done by the private sectors banks. The public sector banks have no dole-outs from the government in this matter. The investors are required to invest in the potential private sectors to participate in the recovery.

Another investing theme is the Capex announcements and the real-estate buoyancy should help in the enhancement of the building materials to develop as a sector. The third important factor is that the government had to struggle a lot to establish India as a technology-oriented economy. There were plenty of hurdles from the IT-service perspective as well as the tech start-up system.

There are various reasons to establish a friendlier tax regime in the Budget. Mr Mukherjea added that the government must be setting the possibilities for improvement in the GST pullbacks. The remarkable GST collection in the month of January as declared by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is a sign of growth. The government is carrying their functions conservatively to keep enough scopes of development in GST collection.

The proposals of “anti-rich” and “anti-foreign” investor taxes will not be possible to be implemented by the government as evident in the Budget. The government is claiming to pull back the revenue expenditure as well as the subsidies. That is why they are keeping the calculations conservative.

Mr Mukherjea stated that the government cannot resuscitate the low-income consumption all of a sudden. There is a lack of such an efficient and speedy delivery system in India. It would cause an increase in inflation in the country. He said that consumption has been affected massively, especially in the lower-income segments. But the government cannot do anything to resolve the issue of low consumption instantly. To revive consumption, the government is required to examine the abatement of COVID waves. It is necessary to ensure that the vaccination is successfully bringing the labours back to the cities. This will gradually lead to the enhancement of consumption. The FMCG and the two-wheeler segments can be significant measures in the recovery process.