FM Jaitley against burdening salaried, middle class

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said that he does not favour burdening the salaried and middle-class with more taxes but would go after the evaders in widening the net.

In fact, he would encourage more money being put in the pockets of tax payers that will lead to spending and collection of more indirect taxes.

"This widening of the tax base. What does it mean? ...I pay the same indirect tax as my attendant. Our volume of consumption may be different. So everybody is paying indirect taxes.

"And literally almost half your taxes are indirect taxes today. He pays excise, he pays customs duty, he pays service tax. Now as far as income tax is concerned, to bring those who evade tax is widening the tax net, I am all for it," the Minister said in an interaction with PTI journalists at PTI headquarters.

He was replying to a question on whether his budget would look at widening the tax base to maximise revenue. Jaitley, who will be presenting his first full fledged Budget in February, said that in his last budget he had increased the tax exemption limit from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh and would even raise it further if he had more money.