Finance minister P Chidambaram should not change tax rates in Union Budget 2013, except for an increase in minimum threshold limit for individuals, global consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said.

Its other recommendations in direct taxes framework include:

Increase in deduction for housing loan from Rs 1,50,000 to Rs 3,00,000

Reduce MAT rate for infrastructure companies and SEZ developers/units

Broaden the tax base by requiring the mandatory filing for specified transaction or extending the presumptive tax regime

Omit the retrospective amendments relating to royalty and indirect transfer introduced by last year budget

No tax on short-term capital gains on transfer of listed securities

On the indirect tax front, PwC has made the following suggestions:

Keep the Indirect tax rates unchanged, especially the Service tax and Central excise rates

Reduce the rate of SAD to 2% and allow an up-front exemption to the industry having surplus CENVAT credit

All services liable to service tax should qualify as 'input service' and manufacturer should be allowed to take full CENVAT credit of the same

Wherever the payments towards the services rendered are received in foreign currency the benefit of export of services should be available. The conditions relevant to export of services should be liberalised accordingly.