Union Budget to be presented on Feb 1

New Delhi Dec 3: Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley would present the budget for the financial year 2018-19 on Feb 1 and the budget session would start on Jan 30 with President Ram Nath Kovind addressing the Joint Session of both the Houses of Parliament and the Economic Survey, detailing the state of the economy is likely to be tabled on January 31 and the Union Budget may be presented the following day.

Last year Modi government has scrapped the colonial practice of presenting a railway budget and also advanced the date of presenting the budget to the Feb 1 so that governments start spending from April 1 itself when the budget gets implemented. The government has also removed the distinction between planned expenditure and non-planned expenditure.

The budget would be the last full year budget that would be presented by the NDA government before 2019 elections. The upcoming budget would also mark the first budget after GST reform and this year budget was the first budget presented after demonetization.

The budget may contain proposals only related to Direct tax collections and any changes in tax proposals of personal income tax, corporate taxes etc and may not include GST collections.