HIGHLIGHTS OF UNION BUDGET 2007-08 PRESENTED ON 28.2.2007

GENERAL
Housing Loan: 'Reverse mortgage' is to be introduced under which a senior citizen who is owner of a house can avail of a monthly stream of income against mortgage of his/her house, while remaining the owner and occupying the house throughout his/her lifetime, without repayment or servicing of the loan; regulations to be put in place to allow creation of mortgage guarantee companies.

PAN allotted by Income-tax Dept. is to be made sole identification number for all participants in securities market with an alpha-numeric prefix or suffix to distinguish a particular kind of account. As of now each regulating agency in each field has been requiring to obtain on identification number like MIN etc.

VAT, CST and a Roadmap towards GST: Agreement reached with State Governments to phase out CST; rate to be reduced from 4% to 3% with effect from April 1, 2007; Rs.5,495 crore provided for compensation for losses, if any, on account of VAT and also on account of CST; a roadmap for introducing a national level Goods and Services Tax (GST) with effect from April 1, 2010 to be prepared.

In respect all taxes, whether direct or indirect, the present 2% education cess has been increased to 3% i.e an additional cess of 1% on all taxes to be levied to fund secondary education and higher education