Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman (File photo)
NEW DELHI: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman faces a huge challenge this year. The Covid pandemic raged through 2020, roiling economies and ruining many lives. The government’s revenues are down but expenditure commitments are up (think of the free vaccines promised). What path should the finance minister now take? Should she try and balance the books by levying additional taxes?
Say, introduce a temporary Covid-19 cess at the highest income-tax slab, or maybe reintroduce the wealth tax? Or, should she focus on maintaining tax stability while stepping up expenditure for economic revival?
To understand how both scenarios could play out, let’s first look at what impact moderate tax rates have on the tax-GDP ratio and how this compares with a high-tax regime.