The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s draft union budget seems to be getting a good response from all stakeholders. While many battle out its pros and cons, let us see what the stalwarts of the mutual fund industry have to say about it.
Swarup Anand Mohanty, CEO Mirae Assets
The 2017 budget is good, stable and achievable. The MF industry will not be drastically affected by the 2017-18 budget and things would continue as usual. Unlike the 2014 budget after which advisors had started concentrating more on debt funds due to change in taxation, the 2017 budget may not create a significant difference. For retail investors, I think they should focus on long term financial goals, as there are no negatives for them in this budget.
Akshay Gupta, Associate Director & CEO, Indiabulls Asset Management
I feel that the union budget has assuaged and calmed down all those sections who had been worried after the government’s demonetization drive. While this might not materialise immediately, it is on the whole a good budget.
There have been no rude shocks for capital markets; FDIs have been good and the budget finally gives us a clarity on what is the government’s stand on this.
The budget has been particularly good for real estate too which has been developing into an asset class. Real estate, which had lost sheen for sometime now, should probably get its mojo back. I think people will start investing in it now.
In my view, the party is over for debt markets; however, only the government’s monetary policy on Friday would give us some direction as to where it is headed.
Neil Parag Parikh, Chairman and CEO, PPFAS Mutual Fund
For equity investors, this was a budget, which provided as much relief on what it did not announce on the long term capital gains tax front, as on what it actually did. However, this was partly offset by the status quo on the corporate tax rate for listed companies. In a broader sense, the determined move towards digitisation should only help financial assets in the long-run.
Jimmy Patel, CEO-Quantum AMC
This was a tepid budget by all accounts. Neither any clutter breaking reform nor, thankfully, any major populist measure, given the fact that state elections are around the corner, were to be seen.
The build-up to the taxation proposition was great but the final outcome fizzled out. Expectations of tax cuts across the board and simplification of processes have not been addressed though there has been some relief for people in the 2.5 lac to 5 lac tax bracket though. Small businesses were also given some relief.
There was no major relief for mutual funds in this budget.
