Big bang steps

With fiscal and monetary levers being pulled simultaneously, expect economic growth and corporate profit to accelerate

The finance minister surprised almost everyone on Friday with her announcements on corporate taxation. The government has taken the decisive step of reducing tax rates by 10 percentage points to 25 per cent for all domestic companies. For new manufacturing investments, companies can avail of a tax rate of 17 per cent, provided the new assets become operational by March 31, 2023. There were some other less significant changes for share buyback programme that was announced earlier, as well as for the removal of surcharge on capital gains on buying and selling of equities. The total cost of these tax