On July 5, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her maiden Budget which proposed increasing minimum public shareholding from 25 per cent to 35 per cent, easing of KYC norms for foreign portfolio investors and allowing the listing of social enterprises and voluntary organisations to enhance participation in the capital markets.Additionally, she said investments by FPIs in debt securities would be allowed to be transferred and sold to domestic investors in a timely manner and also proposed FPI investment in debt securities issued by Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs).

The PAN (permanent account number) is “certainly not dead” and the recent Budget announcement of interchangeability of the two databases is an “additional facility” to ensure their linkage, which is now mandatory under the law, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Chairman, Pramod Chandra Mody, said.

The Budget also enhanced surcharge on individuals with taxable income between Rs 2-5 crore and Rs 5 crore and above so that the effective tax rates for these two categories would increase by 3 per cent and 7 per cent respectively.