The people who were paying 5% taxes, will only get a concession of ₹290 more. People who were paying 20% tax will get a concession of ₹1,160 more and people who were paying 30% taxes will save only ₹1,740 more.

But the important thing to note here is that the 3% cess on income tax has not been added to this saving estimate. In the new budget, this cess has been increased to 4%. The income tax may subsequently increase and thus people will not be benefited by whatever little raise in concession they will get in income tax.

So, on one hand, the finance minister put the burden of ₹8,000 crores on the treasury in form of the standard deduction and on the other, has increased 1% cess thereby collecting ₹11,000 from the public. It is clear that the taxpaying community will be actually be burdened with more tax and the talk of ‘relief’ is hollow.

The standard deduction is the amount which is deducted from the annual earnings before calculating the income tax. The provision of standard deduction which the government has made in budget 2018 was removed in the budget of 2005-06 by the then finance minister P Chidambaram.