The Lok Sabha passed the Finance Bill 2018 and the Appropriation Bill on Wednesday and it is scheduled to become law by April 1 once President Ram Nath Kovind signs off on it. The finance minister, Arun Jaitley, moved 21 amendments to the Bill, which contains taxation proposals for 2018-19. Once this Bill becomes law it will directly have an impact in your personal finances and the taxes you pay.

Here are five important amendments and clarifications that can be pertinent for the common man. 

1) The fair market value of shares which are unlisted on 31 January 2018 but listed on date of transfer (on or after April 1, 2018) shall be indexed cost of acquisition. This will also apply for unlisted shares which are substituted in tax neutral transfers (like amalgamation, demerger, gift, succession, etc) for shares which are listed on date of transfer. 

2) No indexation benefit in case of exchange rate fluctuation even in case of loss 

3) The grandfathering of gain till 31 January 2018 is incorporated in the computation of LTCG itself rather than merely for the purposes of computing tax at 10%, as per EY India. 

4) Amount to the credit of any depositor in Public Provident Fund (PPF) account cannot be
attached under any law (with a few exceptions) to recover any debt or liability of the depositor. 

5) Withdrawal of section 54EC exemption if bonds issued on or after April 1, 2018 are redeemed within 5 years. Section 54EC provides exemptions up to Rs 50 lakhs if any long-term capital gain is invested in the specified bonds of NHAI and RECL within a period of six months after the date of such transfer. Such investments in these bonds have a lock-in period of 3 years. The Finance Bill, 2018 proposes to restrict the scope of exemption under Section54EC only in respect of long-term capital gains arising from land or building or both. Further, the lock-in period of these bonds ,i.e., NHAI and RECL, has been proposed to be increased to 5 years. #casansaar (Source - Economic Times)