While women safety is the most important to those aged above 30, job creation is paramount for those under 30 and those belonging to tier-1 cities. Notably, controlling inflation is also important to 47 per cent of respondents who are 30+ and 43 per cent men consider investment in infrastructure a priority.
Income support and tax measures are likely to be a highlight of this budget with the expected inclusion of some tax sops. With regard to these policies, removing taxes on medical expenses, universal basic income support for farmers and increasing income tax exemption to INR 5 lacs are the most favoured propositions by the respondents. Interestingly, around 3 in 5 respondents aged above 30 strongly favour increasing tax exemption to INR 5 lacs than those under 30.
Comparatively, there is lesser support for increasing deduction on 80c and increasing tax break on housing loans.
In the past few years, the government introduced several policy reforms that had an impact on citizens. Generally speaking, people seem to have had a more positive than negative impact of the policy reforms initiated in the recent years.
Comparatively, reforms such as digitisation (74 per cent) and aadhar update (67 per cent) were more positively received by people than GST (55 per cent) and demonetisation (50 per cent). Interestingly, GST and demonetisation had a stronger positive impact on men than women (35 per cent vs 26 per cent and 27 per cent vs 21 per cent respectively).
As the state grapples with fiscal deficit, increasing tax on liquor comes in as a solution for the government. As per our data, increasing taxes on “sin goods” such as cigarettes (78 per cent) and alcohol (74 per cent) is favoured more by people than raising corporate tax on large businesses (58 per cent) or increasing GST for real estate (34 per cent).
Lastly, speaking about their financial lives, most people are likely to invest in fixed deposits (43 per cent) and mutual funds (42 per cent) in 2019. This seems to be the strongest in tier-1 cities. 37 per cent women intend to invest in gold, while a higher number of men plan to invest their money in SIPs, stock markets and NPS as compared to women.
It is also interesting to note that a higher number of people aged above 30 are inclined towards investing in insurance (health, life, etc), SIPs and NPS compared to those under 30. This budget is crucial for both the government and the people of India. So, it will be worth the wait to see whether the upcoming Budget will meet people’s expectations or not.
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