Govt intends to have a simplified income tax regime: Sitharaman

• The Finance Minister further said that the central government was seeking ways to decriminalise the tax laws in the country
• Budget 2020 has introduced more tax slabs and offers higher limits provided the taxpayer is ready to forego all the existing exemptions and deductions

Finance Minister Nirmala sitharaman on Friday said the government is looking to simplify the income tax regime.

"We are coming up with steps to simplify the tax regime. We have shown our intent to move towards a simplified tax regime and corporate tax simplification and reduction is a move towards that. The taxpayer charter (as announced in the Budget) is based on trust that should be there between the taxation regime and taxpayers," she said at a media conference in Mumbai on Budget 2020-21 after interactions with industry, academia and policy makers.

The Finance Minister further said that the central government was seeking ways to decriminalise the tax laws in the country.

"We wish to decriminalise laws, we started it off with Companies Act earlier and now we are also looking at the Income Tax Act, in this regard. We want to make it so that for civil offences the punishment is not for criminal offences," Sitharaman said at a press conference in Mumbai on Friday.

She added that a similar press conference will be held in Chennai tomorrow, followed by one in Kolkata on Sunday.

The budget 2020-21 has introduced more tax slabs and offers higher limits provided the taxpayer is ready to forego all the existing exemptions and deductions including home loan interest, other tax savings investments.

The finance ministry expects at least 80 per cent of the taxpayers to move to the new income tax regime, Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said on Friday.