Union finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee remained silent on extension of STPI scheme in his budget speech. With no announcement the tax benefits enjoyed by the IT industry for over a decade will come to an end from March’2011.

However with increase of minimum alternate tax (MAT) from 15% to 18%, the tax liability of IT units will increase this year too.
The budget appeared good for the domestic IT industry as government has announced allocation of huge resources to UID, commercial taxes and other IT projects.

Experts have opined that the sunset to STPI was important for the promotion of IT SEZs and ITIR (information technology investment region) as more than 90% of the profits in IT industry are from big software companies and now they need to grow as a SEZ or ITIR.  

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Infosys founder, Narayana Murthy, yesterday has stated that IT industry does not need extension of STPI scheme and added that IT industry needs to pay higher taxes.