What’s the difference between a full Budget and an interim Budget?
What is interim budget?
A vote on account or interim Budget, means that the government seeks the approval of Parliament for meeting expenditure for the first four months of the fiscal year (April-March) with no changes in the taxation structure. The estimates are presented for the entire year, as is the case with the regular Budget
When is an interim budget presented?
- The government of the day presents an interim budget if it does not have the time to present a full Budget or because national elections may be near.
- In the latter situation, propriety demands that the task of framing the full Budget be left to the incoming government.
What is difference between full budget and interim budget?
- A full budget is the presentation of annual finances of the government, change in existing tax slabs, announcement of new schemes and sops for different sectors of the economy.
- However, in case of an interim budget, change in tax slabs are not made and no new schemes are announced; only finance estimates are presented. In case of an election year, the incoming government has full freedom to change the estimates completely when the final Budget is presented.
Background
- In 1948, erstwhile Finance Minister R K Shanmukham Chetty presented a vote on account and followed it up with Independent India’s first regular budget.
