This Union Budget 2018 that is will be delivered On Feb 1, 2018 is going to be a little different from other Union Budgets for a number of reasons. Let us see why it may be so.

No indirect taxes on goods and services

This would be the first Union Budget after the Goods and Services Tax (GST). This means that there would be no proposals on excise duties, value added tax and at least 10 other different indirect taxes, given that these taxes have now been subsumed by the GST. These are decided by the GST council, which meets often to tweak proposals.

Limited sectoral impact

Given that there would be no excise, VAT etc., the Budget speech could be a shortened one. Sectoral impact could be very limited and what would be watched is the fiscal deficit numbers. Unlike the previous Budgets, where the individual stocks were volatile because of excise and other levies, this may not be the case now.

Some changes that began last year

A few changes that began last year would continue this year. This includes the presentation of the Railway Budget along side the Union Budget and doing away with the difference on planned and non planned expenditure.

In all probability we might see a populist budget given that elections are slated 15 months from now.

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