Interim Budget 2019: Income Tax refunds to be processed within 24 hours, says Piyush Goyal

Income tax refunds will be processed within 24 hours, Union Minister Piyush Goyal announced in his Interim Budget on Friday. "Within the next two years, the assessment of all tax returns should be done electronically without any personal interface," he said while delivering the interim Budget for 2019-20. But the winner among all this was the mega tax rebate for the middle class. In the election year, the government also announced major sops for the small farmers. The Rs 75,000 crore bonanza would guarantee Rs 6000 annual fixed income for farmers. The allocation for MNREGA has been increased from Rs 55,000 crore to Rs 60,000 crore.

Meanwhile, former finance minister P Chidambaram termed the Interim Budget as an "account for votes" and not a "vote on account". "It was not a Vote on Account. It was an Account for Votes," Chidambaram tweeted soon after the presentation of the Union Budget.

He also thanked Finance Minister Piyush Goyal for "copying" the Congress declaration that the poor will have the first right to resources of the country. The senior Congress leader claimed that the government had missed the fiscal deficit target, as warned by him earlier.

"Thank you Interim FM for copying the Congress' declaration that the poor have the first right to the resources of the country. "As I had warned, Government misses Fiscal Deficit target for 2018-19. Another red flag rises: CAD is 2.5 percent," Chidambaram said in a series of tweets while reacting to the Budget.