Expense Account, Mint
Despite the budget-day hysteria, in which there has been an increasing focus on the household and its reaction to the event, the average Indian home has very little to do with the annual expenditure and revenue statement of the government, also known as The Budget.
I also think that attention has been focused on the wrong part of the budget speech, as far as the household is concerned. The part that gets the most attention is the one that deals with the revenue side of the budget, where the focus is on income tax. We worry about tax slabs, exemption limits and tax rates. But there has been no big change for the last 14 years in the marginal rate of income tax that has stayed at 30%. The only changes have been more of a tinkering in the form of a cess here, a surcharge there, of differential tax thresholds for men, women, or the introduction of a “very senior citizen” category in the last budget (this one still baffles me).