The Business desk’s clarification on “Income and tax scenarios” table (Feb. 2, 2021): “There were no changes in personal income tax in the latest Budget and what EY (the tax consulting firm from whom the contents were sourced) had sent as calculations essentially reflected the two alternative regimes that had been offered in last year’s budget and as per the Finance Bill 2021 would be applicable from the Assessment Year 2021-22. Given that we were once again carrying a tax incidence table we ought to have made clear the following: That the latest Finance Bill merely reiterated the scheme from last year’s Budget announcement and that taxpayers could file their returns for the current fiscal year based on the two alternative tax options detailed in last year’s Budget. As per those options, the tax incidence if they used the old approach, would be as per the left column, and if they opted for the new approach would be as per the right column. In effect, the table would have read exactly like the table that was published last year. The column heads should not have been Pre Budget and Post Budget.”
