"Income tax relief can be
provided to lower income brackets to compensate for inflation. This
could take the form of raising the tax exemption limit from the current
Rs 1.6 lakh," it said in a report.
Presently, income up to Rs 1,60,000 is exempted from tax for
individuals. For women and senior citizens, the limit is Rs 1,90,000 and
Rs 2,40,000, respectively.
Inflation continues to be a concern for the common man as well as the government.
While the food inflation had touched 18.32 per cent in
December, 2010, before being moderated to over 11 per cent this month,
the overall inflation still stood above eight per cent as against the
comfort level of 5-6 per cent.
Goldman also expects the fiscal deficit for the current fiscal to reduce
to 4.9 per cent of the GDP against 5.5 per cent estimated in Budget
2010-11.
The reduction is largely due to the windfall on 3G telecom auctions and disinvestment proceeds.
"For 2011-12, even with revenue measures and slower growth in
expenditures, we expect the central deficit to be slightly higher at 5
per cent of GDP, largely as the one-off revenues would be considerably
reduced", it said.
The government
mobilised over Rs 100,000 crore from the 3G and Broadband Wireless
Access (BWA) auctions in the current fiscal.
Besides, the government raised over Rs 15,000 crore by listing
Coal India on the bourses, apart from Rs 6,000 crore from Powergrid
Corporation, MOIL , Engineers India
, Shipping Corporation and Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd, taking
the disinvestment proceeds to over Rs 21,000 crore.
src: ET