Budget 2023: FM Nirmala Sitharaman On MSMEs And Ease Of Doing Business

From 11 am today all eyes were on Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who was presenting the last budget of the second term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Although many would consider the highlight of the budget to be increasing the rebate limit for individual taxpayers from INR 5 lakh to INR 7 lakh a year, several interesting announcements were made as far as MSMEs and ease of doing business is concerned.

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During her budget speech, the FM said that "MSMEs are growth engines of our economy. Micro enterprises with turnover up to INR 2 crore and certain professionals with turnover of up to INR 50 lakh can avail the benefit of presumptive taxation. I propose to provide enhanced limits of INR 3 crore and INR 75 lakh respectively, to the tax payers whose cash receipts are no more than 5 per cent."

"To support MSMEs in timely receipt of payments, I propose to allow deduction for expenditure incurred on payments made to them only when payment is actually made," she added.

There were a lot of updates on the ease of doing business too. Over 39,000 compliances were reduced while more than 3,400 legal provisions were decriminalised for improving the ease of doing business. "If MSMEs fail to execute the contract, 95 per cent of performance security will be returned to the small businesses as part of Vivad Se Vishwas," said Sitharaman.

She also proposed to use the PAN card as the common identifier for all digital systems at government agencies. This shall help in simplifying the KYC process and also reduce the burden on the Income Tax Department and other government agencies in handling documents of the PAN cardholders.

"For the business establishments required to have a permanent account number, the PAN will be used as a common identifier for all digital systems of specified government agencies," the FM had said.