We will be told that New Zealand taxes fringe benefits, the distinguishing feature of that country being it has more sheep than people. But we won’t be told that no country that taxes perquisites taxes fringe benefits. Stock options will now be taxed under FBT. How do stock options represent collective corporate expenditure? Admittedly, there is tax fatigue in India, understandable because taxes go into the black hole known as the Consolidated Fund and there is little accountability on how that revenue is spent. The education cess is a case in point. There is a suggestion that the earlier 2 per cent cess was for school education and we now need 1 per cent more for secondary and higher education. Not true. The earlier cess was meant to be split in 50/50 ratio between school education and the rest and with the Centre’s contribution in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan declining from 75 per cent to 50 per cent, no additional cess should have been necessary. This budget has several measly items of public expenditure (focused larger expenditure on a smaller menu would have been better), but there is nothing on improving efficiency of expenditure. There is nothing on bang for the buck. This budget too, has buck, but no bang.

The writer is an economist