No timeline to remove income tax exemptions, says Nirmala Sitharaman

"We have not made up our minds as yet (on the removal of all exemptions)... We are trying step by step, move forward and no particular timeline given," she said

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said the idea behind introducing second alternative tax slabs sans exemptions was to take the country towards “a simplified, exemption-free, and reduced rate of tax regime”.
 
There was, however, no time frame set by the government to remove all exemptions, she told reporters after an interactive session with trade representatives and intellectuals on the Union Budget.
 
“At the moment we only started a second alternative with some exemptions removed or some exemptions included, although the original intention was to remove all exemptions and give a clear simplified reduced rate of income tax,”