Budget 2018: ET Magazine survey has a clear message for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

The survey “Mann Ka Budget with ET Magazine” was put up on The Economic Times website on January 21 and ran till January 24. 674 respondents answered 15 questions on what they wanted from the Union budget that will be placed in the Lok Sabha by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on February 1. 35% of the respondents were young professionals and 33% senior executives.

To the question, which segment of the populace should get relief this year, 65% possibly answered for themselves when they said “the salaried middle class”. However, 28% said farmers and agri-workers are the most in need of relief from the finance minister. On auto fuel excise duty policy, the majority wanted to move away from the current system of ad hoc changes in taxes to a more transparent one. 63% said it is best to put auto fuels under the GST regime.

On income tax, while almost 40% wanted the higher limit of the Rs 10-15 lakh slab to be moved up further, 36% wanted the higher limit of the Rs 2.5-5 lakh slab to move up. Expanding the limit of Rs 1.5 lakh for deductions under Section 80C was the overwhelming demand of 46% respondents. Close to 80% of the respondents also voted for lowering of the income tax rates. A small segment, 4%, said they will be happy to pay more taxes for the nation while 13% said they are happy with the current income-tax levels.


A good healthcare regime for senior citizens was the top voted item among the choices of relief for that segment. Healthcare also topped the areas which the respondents thought should get a higher allocation from the finance minister, while the farm sector emerged as the top distress area that should get the finance minister’s attention. There’s more in the survey: from crypto currency to corporarte taxes. Take a look: