Finance Bill 2017 passed in Lok Sabha

NEW DELHI: With the passage of the Finance Bill, the Lok Sabha today completed the Budgetary exercise for 2017-18.

Amidst walkout by the members of the Congress and the BJD, the Finance Bill with 40 amendments was passed by the House by voice vote.

The amendments to the Finance Bill include a provision to cap legal cash transactions at Rs 2 lakh from April 1 got approval. The bill had originally proposed the cap at Rs 3 lakh.

Besides, amendments to the Companies Act, the Employees Provident Fund Act, Smuggling and Foreign Exchange Act, TRAI Act and Information Technology Act were passed.

One of the important amendments was making Aadhaar number mandatory for filing of Income Tax returns to curb tax evasion and frauds.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, whil replying to a debate on the Finance Bill, said the cap on cash transactions is being reduced to curb generation of black money and the move to introduce electoral bonds is for cleansing the political funding.