Finance Minister Shrimati Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the Finance Bill, 2021 in the Loksabha on 1st February 2021 amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic after presenting the Union Budget 2021.
This is her third Budget since the formation of the 17th Loksabha in 2019 and so the Finance Bill.
Prior to 1999, the Union Budget was presented in the evening every year in India. The pattern changed in 1999 when the then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha of NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee started the tradition of presenting the budget at 11 am. Since then, the Union Budget is presented during the day.
Also, the Union Budget was presented on the last working day of February till 2016. From 2017, former finance minister Arun Jaitley changed the tradition to February 1.
Finance Bill, 2021 aims to provide for income tax rates the financial year 2020-21 and advance tax rates for the FY 2021-22 as well as TDS rates for the upcoming financial year.
The Union Budget is also known as the annual financial statement as it is a yearly statement of estimated receipts and expenditures of the government. Union Budget 2021 provides the statement of the estimated receipts and expenditure of the Government of India for the year 2021-22.
The Finance Bill is introduced only in Lok Sabha immediately after the presentation of the Union Budget. The finance bill gives effect to the government's financial proposals on the taxation front.
Legislation which is yet to be passed as a law by the Houses of Parliament is termed a Bill. As per Rule 219 of the Rules of Procedure of Lok Sabha, Finance Bill means the Bill ordinarily introduced in each year to give effect to the financial proposals of the Government of India for the next following financial year and includes a Bill to give effect to supplementary financial proposals for any period.
Unlike the past, the voluminous budget documents will not be physically printed this year following the COVID-19 protocol and will instead be distributed electronically to the Members of Parliament (MPs).
This is for the first time in independent India since the presentation of independent India's first budget on November 26, 1947, the Budget documents containing income and expenditure statement of the Union Government along with the Finance Bill for FY 2021-22 has gone “paperless”. The government refrains from printing hard copies of the budget documents in the wake of the safety issues posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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