Budget 2019: 'Increase disposable income through lower taxation, place ESOP on par with LTCG'

Finance Miniser Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget 2019 in Parliament in just a few hours. Ahead of the presentation, Neelesh Talathi, CFO, Pepperfry is hoping that the government helps the e-commerce space to sustain its growth. "Indian e-commerce at $40 Bn and the fastest growing sector with potential to become world 3rd largest market at $450 Bn in under a decade. As Modi 2.0 presents it first budget our expectations are to address aspects of our economy such that this growth rate is sustained," he said. 

During its first tenure, the Modi government had consistently pushed Digital India. Yet, there is a lot of work that could be done to make internet more accessible to people. Also, steps could be taken to provide better data speed. 

"It is also an opportune time to support the nascent and disruptive FinTech sector including addressing the challenges from the Aadhar judgment. Last Union Budget initiated projects around Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence areas in which we hope to see a clear roadmap to claim global leadership in coming years," Talathi said. 

He added that the next thing that could fuel the e-commerce space is the consumption demand of Middle Class. He said that the government should increase disposable income through lower taxation. A step regarding this could be taken in the Union Budget and Zee Business Online has reported in the past that tax benefit under Section 80C can be extended up to Rs 2 lakh instead of the existing Rs 1.5 lakh.

"Further India needs to sustain high GDP growth and the government should use this strong electoral mandate to drive structural changes particularly around land ownership, labour reforms and addressing the NPA issues," Talathi said. 

"Employees across start-ups work to solve problems not earlier addressed. Naturally this is riskier, ESOP is a suitable reward for co-sharing the risk with the founders. It is time that we address the taxation anomaly on ESOP and place this important reward tool at par with long term capital gains," he added.