Govt to announce friendly tax regime for startups in Budget, says Arun Jaitley

Government in the Budget next month will announce a friendly tax regime that will encourage setting up of startups in the country, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today.

“We have already worked upon an entrepreneur-friendly taxation regime. There are some steps, which can be taken up by notifications, which would be taken forthwith. Others require legislative provisions, which can only come as part of the Finance Bill when Budget is presented in order to create a friendly taxation regime for startups,” he said at the Start Up India conference here.

Recognising the need to encourage startups, a fund was suggested in the Budget last year, he said.

He assured the startups that both the banking system and the government will make the resources available to them.

Besides Start Up, the Finance Minister said the government will launch Stand Up India scheme under which, bank branches will lend to entrepreneurs belonging to SC/STs and women.

“On Independence Day Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) announced the Stand Up India scheme. The Stand Up India would be separately launched. It is a programme, which envisages women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs belonging to the SC, STs (to get funding from banks). These were the segments which were not throwing up entrepreneurs.

“Each bank branch, public sector or private sector, would actually adopt one in the SC/ST category and one in the women category. So they will adopt two such entrepreneurs and fund them to set up establishments,” he said.

By funding trading or manufacturing establishment of this segment, almost 3,00,000 new entrepreneurs over the next two years will be created, he said.