by kuldip kumar as finance minister arun jaitley readies to present the budget there are several demands for changes that he will need to tackle besides the popular call for rejigging tax slabs and exemption limits here are some other areas that have been ignored for years and are begging for his attention exemption limit for allowances the taxexempt limits for certain allowances have not been revised for nearly 17 years so even as the costs of education commuting and medical treatment have increased multifold the limits have remained constant and do not help ease the burden for individual taxpayers for example the exemption limit for childrens education allowance has been rs 100 per month hostel allowance rs 300 and transport allowance rs 800 since 1 august 1997 similarly the medical reimbursement limit of rs 15000 was fixed in 199899 given the inflationary trends these limits need an urgent revamp leave travel concession leave travel concession ltc gets tax exemption for two journeys in a block of four calendar years with the current block being 201417 if an individual fails to avail of this twice in a given block he can carry it forward to the next block and apply for an additional exemption the exemption is also limited to the economy class air fare or first class railway fare to a destination within india however this needs to be extended to every financial year it should also bring within its ambit overseas destination as well as expenses for hotel and food standard deduction there is a need to reintroduce standard deduction to bring the salaried class at par with the selfemployed entrepreneursprofessionals in terms of certain expenses these expenses include those incurred to keep abreast of the latest developments in their areas of work or specialisation earlier there was a provision for standard deduction which was removed in 20056 car perks if a car is provided by an employer to the employee for both official and personal use and the running and maintenance are borne by the former the benefit is taxed concessionally it is rs 1800 per month where the cubic capacity of the car does not exceed 16 litre and rs 2400 per month if it exceeds 16 litre besides rs 900 is added to the taxable value if a chauffeur is also provided this is irrespective of the actual cost incurred by the employer in running and maintaining the car on the other hand if the car is owned by the employee and used for both official and personal purposes and the running and maintenance are met by the employer the exemption is limited to rs 18002400 per month depending on the capacity besides rs 900 for the chauffeur so if an employee is provided a chauffeurdriven car more than 16 litre for both official and personal purposes and the employer incurs an expenditure of rs 50000 per month on running and maintenance the employee will pay a tax of rs 3300 rs 2400 rs