3. Tax slabs have been changed to the following:

Up to 2 lakh: NIL (earlier 1.8 lakh)

2-5 lakh: 10 percent

5-10 lakh: 20 percent (earlier 5-8 lakh)

Above Rs 10 lakh: 30 percent (earlier above 8 lakh)

For NRIs, as for all resident Indians, the tax liability will come down. A tax reduction of up to 22,000 is expected on income of 10 lakh.

4. The Direct Tax Code (DTC) which was likely to be put into practice from April 2012, has been delayed for now.

This may come as a relief for NRIs as some of the prerequisites of DTC were relatively unkind. For example, under the planned DTC, any person (including NRIs/PIO) will be converted into resident, if they are present in India for 60 days or more in the financial year and 365 days or more over a period of four years prior to the financial year and would be liable to pay taxes on their global income. This proposition would have hurtled all those NRIs who visited India regularly for personal or business purposes.