PUBLIC FINANCE

Samir K Mahajan

SOME BASIC CONCEPTS

Public Finance: Public Finance is a subject that is concerned with the income and expenditure of public authorities.

Government Budget: A government budget is a statement of estimated income and expenditure of public authorities. It is a future programme and is framed generally for a year.

A government budget has got two components such as: Revenue Budget and Capital Budget. Revenue budget consists of revenue receipts and expenditure met form such receipts. The capital budget consists of capital budget and its payment.

Samir K Mahajan

Budget Receipts: Classification of Government Receipts.

The receipts of the public authorities are broadly classified into revenue receipts and non-revenue receipts.

Budget Receipts

Revenue Receipts

Tax Revenue

Non-Tax Revenue

Capital or Non-Revenue Receipts

Borrowings

Recoveries of Loans

Other Non-Revenue Receipts

Samir K Mahajan

REVENUE RECEIPTS

Revenue receipts are those receipts which do not create a liability or lead to reduction in assts. These receipts are routine, ordinary and usual in nature.

Revenue receipts includes tax-revenue and non-tax revenues.

TAX REVENUE

Tax revenues may be further classified into direct and indirect.

DIRECT TAX: Direct taxes are levied on income, property and expenditure. Direct Taxes are those taxes the burden of which cannot be shifted to others. In case of direct tax. The impact and incidence fall on the same person. Some Direct taxes are as follows:

o Income Tax: Income taxes are taxes imposed on income (earned by individuals) from salaries, Business, profession, property and some other sources. Income taxes except agricultural income tax are levied and collected by central government, and shared with the states.

o Corporation Tax: Corporation taxes are imposed on income of companies and business corporations. Corporation taxes are levied, collected and retained with central government.

Samir K Mahajan

REVENUE RECEIPTS contd. DIRECT TAX contd.

o Wealth tax: Wealth tax are levied on wealth accumulated by individuals in the form of land, buildings, gold, credit instruments, cash etc. Wealth taxes are levied, collected and retained with union or central government.

o Estate duties: Estate duties are levied on the property or wealth when passed to other Individual(s) following the death of property owners. Estate duties are levied and collected by central governments but are retained with the states government.

o Agricultural income tax: Agricultural income taxes are levied on agricultural income. In India, these are levied, collected and retained by the sates government.

o Profession tax: Profession taxes are levied on income of professionals such as doctors, chartered accountants, artists, etc. Professions tax are levied by the states governments.

o Land revenue: Land revenues are levied on the land owned. Land revenues are levied by state governments on land owned by landowners.

o Stamps and registration fees: Stamps fees are levied in case of agreements, contracts, sales and purchases deeds. Registration fees are charged on registration of properties such as land, buildings, etc. These taxes are levied by the Union government, but charged by the state governments. Revenue is also received from licence fees, road tax etc.

Samir K Mahajan

REVENUE RECEIPTS contd

INDIRECT TAXES: Indirect taxes are those the burden of which can be ultimately shifted to some other persons. These taxes are commodities. Some of the Indirect taxes are:

o Excise duties: Taxes levied on production of certain commodities are excise duties. In India, excise duties are levied by Central government on commodities except liquors and narcotics. Proceeds from union excise duties are shared with the states by central government. State governments imposes excise duties on liquor and narcotics.

o Customs duties: Custom duties are levied on imports and exports of goods. Custom duties are levied , collected and retained with central governments.

o Sales tax: Sales taxes are charged on the sales made by the traders. Sales tax are the most important source revenue for the state governments.

o Entertainment tax: Entertainment are levied on all types of paid entertainment activities. Entertainment tax is levied by state government.

Samir K Mahajan

REVENUE RECEIPTS contd

NON-TAX REVENUE

Non-tax revenues of public authorities are obtained from non-tax sources . Non tax revenue includes:

o Earnings from currency and coinageo Interest received from loans advanced to state governments, local bodies and other partieso Commercial revenues (such as profits and dividends from public sector enterprises) o Administrative revenues from administrative services such as: public services commissions, police, jails, agriculture

and allied services, industry and minerals, water and power department, public works, education, forestry, minerals and so on.

o Service financing receipts (such as fees and fine, licensees, permits etc. )o grants and gifts such as external grants from foreign countries

Samir K Mahajan

CAPITAL RECEIPTS OR NON-REVENUE RECEIPTS

Receipts creating liability or reduction in assets are called capital receipts. Capital receipts are casual an irregular in nature. Capital receipts of central Government includes

o Borrowings – internal (such as internal loans from RBI; market by selling treasury bills; public issue of bonds, Certificates etc) and external (such as external loans from foreign governments, international agencies like IMF, World Bank ) etc.

o Recoveries of loans and advances extended to state governments, union territories, local bodies another parties

o Receipts from disinvestment (disinvestment means selling wholly or partially equity share of public enterprises held by government )

o Other receipts such as receipts from small savings of public such as Post Office Savings Bank Deposits, Post office Time Deposits and such other schemes Recurring Deposits, National Savings Certificates etc. The major part of such collection goes to state government.

Samir K Mahajan

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE

Public Expenditures refer to expenses of public authorities i.e. the central, state and local governments. Budget Public expenditures are classified as Revenue expenditures and Capital expenditures.

Revenue Expenditure: Revenue expenditure are the expenditure incurred for the normal functioning of the government departments and provisions for various services including salaries, pensions of employees, interests charged on debt of the government, grants and subsidies given by government etc. Revenue expenditures do not create assets. Revenue expenditures includes expenditures on

o Administrative and general Serviceso Social and Community Serviceso Economics services such as agriculture, industry,

trade etco Maintenance of roads, railways etco Collection of taxes o Interest payment o Subsidies and Transfer to local bodies o Defence and internal securities

Capital Expenditures: Capital expenditures are the expenditure incurred on acquisition of assets such as land, building, machineries, equipments, investment in shares, loans and advances given to state governments, union territories, corporations etc.

o Public Works o Construction of power generation plant o Construction of roadways and railwayso Flood control workso Capital Project on agriculture Irrigation

canalso Power projectso Repayment of loanso loans advances by government o Administration

Samir K Mahajan

Development expenditures: Development expenditures are those which directly help economic and social development. They may be either in revenue or capital account. Development expenditure includes

o Expenditure on economic services such as Agriculture, Industry, Transport, Communication, Power, Minerals etc

o Expenditure on social ad community services such as Medical and public health, Education

Housing and sanitations, social and welfare programme

Non-development expenditure: Non-development expenditures are those expenditures which are incurred to run the government and functionary and indirectly help development. Non-development Expenditure may be either in revenue or capital account.

o Defenceo Administrationso Policeo Tax collectiono Interest on public debto Subsidies o External affairs o Repayment of loans

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE contd.

DEVELOPMENT AND NON-DEVELOPMENT EXPENDITURE

Budget also depicts its expenditure in terms of development and non-development heads.

Samir K Mahajan

STRUCTURE OF GOVERNMENT BUDGET

TYPES OF GOVERNMENT BUDGET

Surplus budget: Excess of estimated revenue of the government over its anticipated expenditure is known as surplus budget.

Balanced budget: when estimated revenue of the government over is equal to its anticipated expenditure, it is known as balanced budget.

Deficit budget : When estimated government expenditure exceeds its estimated revenue, it is known as deficit budget.

TYPE OF BUDGETARY DEFICIT

Revenue deficit: Excess of estimated revenue expenditure of government over its estimated revenue is known as deficit budget.

Revenue deficits = total revenue expenditure - total revenue receipts

Fiscal deficit: Excess of all estimated expenditure of government over its estimated receipts of the year on both revenue account and capital account except borrowings during any year is termed as fiscal deficit. Fiscal deficits reflects the total borrowing requirement of the government.

Fiscal Deficit = Total Budgetary expenditure – Revenue receipts – capital receipts excluding borrowings = (Revenue Expenditure + Capital Expenditure ) – Revenue receipts – recoveries of loans – receipts from disinvestment

Primary Deficits: Primary deficits is fiscal deficits less interest payments

Primary Deficits=Fiscal deficits – interest payment

Samir K Mahajan