Bank Employees Dearness Allowance from February 2020 - DA 2020

Bank Employees Dearness Allowance from February 2020 - DA 2020

According to the 10th Bipartite Settlement for the period from February, March and April 2020, 75.90 percent of the Dearness Allowance (DA) grants to Bank employees. In this regard the Indian Banks Association (IBA) released a circular and the same is reproduced and provided for your information below :

Indian Banks’ Association
HR & Industrial Relations

No.CIR/HR&IR/ 76/D/2019-20/ 8619

February 1, 2020

All Members of the Association (Designated Officers)

Dear Sirs,
Dearness Allowance for Workmen and Officer Employees in banks for the months of February, March & April 2020 under X BPS / Joint Note dated 25.5.2015.
The confirmed All India Average Consumer Price Index Numbers for Industrial Workers (Base 1960= 100) for the quarter ended December 2019 are as follows:-

• October 2019 – 7418.42
• November 2019 – 7486.90
• December 2019 – 7532.55

The average CPI of the above is 7479.29 and accordingly the number of DA slabs are 759 (7479 – 4440 = 3039 / 4 = 759 Slabs) The last quarterly Payment of DA was at 717 Slabs. Hence there is an increase in DA slabs of 42 i.e 759 Slabs for payment of DA for the quarter February, March and April 2020.

AICPIN for December 2019 – Press Release

In terms of clause 7 of the 10th Bipartite Settlement dated 25.05.2015 and clause 3 of the Joint Note dated 25.05.2015, the rate of Dearness Allowance payable to workmen and officer employees for the months of February, March & April 2020 shall be 75.90% of pay. While arriving at dearness allowance payable, decimals from third place may please be ignored.

Yours Faithfully,
sd/-
S K Kakkar
Senior Advisor (HR&IR)

MoD – Defence Budget 2020 – 2021 – Defence Pension 2020

MoD – Defence Budget 2020 – 2021 – Defence Pension 2020

The Union budget for the 2020-21 financial year, presented to Parliament on February 01, 2020 by Finance Minister Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, envisaged a total outlay of Rs 30,42,230 crore. Rs 3,37,553 crore (excluding Defence Pension) has been allocated for Defence. A amount of Rs 1,33,825 crore was provided for Defence Pension in Budget Estimates 2020-21.

There is an increase in total Defence allocations (Rs 4,71,378 crore) of Rs 40,367.21 crore including Defence Pension over the 2019-20 fiscal year. Total defence budget accounts for 15.49 per cent of total central government spending for the 2020-21 fiscal year.

The allocation of Rs 4,71,378 crore reflects a 9.37 per cent increase over Budget Estimates (Rs 4,31,010,79 crore) for the 2019-20 financial year.

Of the Rs 3,37,553 crore allocated for the 2020-21 financial year, Rs 2,18,998 crore is for revenue (Net) expenditure and Rs 1,18,555 crore is for capital expenditure for Defence Services and Ministry of Defense organizations / departments. The total of Rs 1,18,555 crore allocated for capital spending includes expenditure related to modernisation.

Input from PIB

Budget 2020 – Personal Income Tax and tax simplification

Budget 2020 – Personal Income Tax and tax simplification

In order to provide significant relief to individual taxpayers and to simplify the Income-Tax law, the Finance Minister proposed to introduce a new and simpler personal income tax system in which income tax rates will be substantially reduced for individual taxpayers who forgo such deductions and exemptions.

The proposed tax-slab adjustments are listed in the table below:

Taxable Income Slab (Rs.)	Existing tax rates	New tax rates
0-2.5 Lakh	Exempt	Exempt
2.5-5 Lakh	5%	5%
5-7.5 Lakh	20%	10%
7.5-10 Lakh	20%	15%
10-12.5 Lakh	30%	20%
12.5-15 Lakh	30%	25%
Above 15 Lakh	30%	30%

Surcharge and cess shall be continued to be levied at the existing rates.

In the new tax system, a taxpayer will gain substantial tax benefit, depending on the exemptions and deductions that he seeks. Thus its tax burden in the new regime will be reduced by Rs. 78,000. He would still be the gainer in the new regime, even though under the old regime he took deduction from Rs. 1.5 Lakh under various sections of Chapter VI-A of the Income Tax Act.

To individuals the new tax system will be free. An person currently benefiting from more deductions and exemptions under the Income Tax Act may choose to take advantage of them and continue to pay tax in the old regime.

The new rates for personal income tax would require foregone revenue of Rs. 40,000 crore per year. Measures were implemented to pre-fill the income tax return so that a person who opts for the new regime would not need an expert’s assistance to file their report and pay income tax.

The Finance Minister said that over the past several decades she has reviewed all exemptions and deductions that have been incorporated into the income tax legislation. The Income Tax Act currently provides more than one hundred exemptions and deductions of different character. In the new simplified regime, she said she has removed about 70 of them. She said that in the coming years, the remaining exemptions and deductions would also be reviewed and rationalized to further simplify the tax system and lower the tax rate.