Union Budget 2010 - A discussion session @ XIME

This year also, I was fortunate to be the chairman of the panel for discussing the Union Budget. It was a tough job this time, as there were not much change in the Union Budget and not many new schemes introduced by the Finance Minister.

Myself and Sendil (my friend) reached the venue much earlier (thanks to the new Flyover)!

We met Prof.Philip, the President of the Institute and he hosted us. Prof. J. Philip,  recently received the Life-time Achievement Award for Excellence in the Profession and Societal Contribution, instituted by the Alumni Association of XLRI, Jamshedpur. Prof. J. Philip was a student of XLRI during 1958-60. Shri B. Muthuraman, Chairman XLRI and Vice Chairman Tata Steel presented the award in a ceremony to mark the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations of XLRI on 21st November, 2009 at Jamshedpur.

Prof.Srinivasan joined us, took us to Mr.Tyagaraj (Officiating Director of XIME) and introduced him.

The other panelist, Mr.Shiva Kumar, CFO, DBOI Global Services P Ltd, who is my friend, joined us and we chatted for sometime, before being put before the gathered knowledge crowd.

It was nice to note that the programme started exactly at the stated time.

After a brief introduction of the panelist, the Management students presented nicely the synopsis of the Union Budget from the angle of Business, Taxpayer, Investor etc., It is really good to see students getting too much into the Budgets and analyzing them too. They put the points very neatly & crisply.

Then Shiva Kumar presented his views on the Union Budget from an Industry perspective. He touched upon the various provisions relating to the Direct & Indirect taxes. His covered the following among other things:

• TDS provisions - payment before filing the return.
• Taxability of the LLP Conversion
• Weighted deduction for inhouse R&D
• Service Tax
• GST & DTC roll outs

After Shiva's speech, Prof Srinivasan took the stage and had the entire auditorium under his control with his witty and thought provoking speech. His vast knowledge came in very handy for him. This is the same person, who told the "horse can fly" story while discussing the last union budget. He summarized the speech and concluded "It is not the OUTLAY that matters, but the OUTCOME"!

It was my turn to summarize the session and give my view on the Union Budget. It was a difficult job for me. Yes...the Union Budget has not made any great changes to discuss and whatever little changes that were made, were already covered by the previous speakers.

As usual, I started with a cartoon (pictures can convey better than words) and covered the following:

• Budget outlay and the highlights of the budget
• Some of the key projects (for Justice, Development of skilled labours and E-Governance)
• Direct & Indirect tax changes (mostly covered in my previous post)
• Challenges before the Government

After my speech, the Q&A session was opened. There were very good questions (of course, questions are always good - only the answers matter). The questions were on:

• LLP
• NREGA & how the outlays are utilised
• MAT implication once the DTC is introduced

We tried to answer the questions. Remember, answering a student is not an easy task!

After the vote of thanks, we left thanking Prof.Srinivasan & Mr.Tyagaraj.

I am really happy that students / B-School are taking initiatives in getting the industry perspective and get the people from Industry to air their views.

Thanks to Sendil for taking the snaps and accompanying me.

Cheers,

Gopal