CA Online

1.  CBDT issued criteria for manual selection of scrutiny cases during FY 2015-16.Instruction no.8 Dated 31-08-2015. 2.  Only because an amounting is appearing in 26AS, it cannot be taxed in the hands of assessee unless he is proved to be beneficiary of that amount-[Rajinder Pratap Thareja (Jab.) ITA 137/2014 dated 31-03-2015] 3.  Government accepts the recommendation of the Justice A.P. Shah committee to clarify the in-applicability of MAT to FIIs/FPIs and has decided that an appropriate amendment to the Income Tax Act will be carried out. 4.  Paid up holding value of shares on date of giving special notice by members substituted from not more than Rs. 5 Lakh to not less than Rs 5 Lakh. Notification dated 28.8.2015. 5.  Paid up holding value of shares on date of giving special notice by members substituted from not more than Rs. 5 Lakh to not less than Rs 5 Lakh. Notification dated 28.8.2015. 6.  Amended new form MGT 7 (Annual Return form) notif...

Do you find yourself at the receiving end of the income-tax department’s scrutiny year after year despite being an honest taxpayer, just because you go on multiple foreign trips in a year and make high-value cash deposits? Well, you may soon get some relief, with the income-tax department looking to rationalize the scrutiny process for taxpayers picked out by the computer-assisted selection system, or CASS. In an effort to reduce harassment of taxpayers, the department will soon issue some clarifications to the scrutiny process. “We will clarify that if a taxpayer has been picked up for scrutiny for two consecutive years and no addition has been made, he will not be scrutinized again,” said a senior official of the income-tax department, on condition of anonymity. Addition refers to the practice of the tax department to add to the income of the taxpayer and, therefore, increase the tax liability in case it finds, during scrutiny, that the assessee has under-reported his or he...

The Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks has issued new guidelines for issuance of computer-related inventions, which could make it easier for IT companies in the country to register a patent. The guidelines, issued on August 21, allow companies to show innovation in just software, rather than in both software and hardware as was previously required. They also make it easier to register a patent for technical innovation in a business method--the basis of most patents filed in the BPO industry. “The guidelines help the examiners judge whether a patent should be awarded,“ Bishakha Bhattacharya, senior director of policy at the National Association of Software and Services Companies, told ET. “In the past, they were quite oner ous--requiring novelty in both hardware and software--and if there were terms denoting business process management like supply chain, then they would be rejected. The new guidelines change that.“ But Bhattacharya said there were still some ...

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued draft guidelines on the computation of the base rate of banks, based on marginal costs of funds, to be effective from April 1, 2016. Indian Banks Association (IBA) will finalise the components of the spread over and above the base rate, to ensure uniformity in lending rate calculations. The regulator has asked banks for a clear time frame to adopt the methodology within two months from the issue of the final norms. The components of the spread would include allocable costs, term premium, risk premium reflecting the defaults and the qualitative element of business strategy. The first three components are quantitative; the business strategy would indicate the priority for the product. If the bank wants to expand that portfolio, it would give a discount and may charge more if it wants to exit from that business line, said a senior public sector bank official. IBA is yet to finalise the components. These will be uniform across the bank...

On a day that the 2013 land Act came into effect again with the lapsing of the current government’s land ordinance, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said all that state governments now needed to do was to bring legislations to amend the central law and seek presidential assent for it. He said the Centre would permit the state governments to make state- specific amendments in the 2013 Land Act. Jaitley said acquisition of property was a list III entry 42 in the concurrent list of the Constitution. He said the provisions of Article 254 ( 2) clearly provide that a state government can bring legislation on a concurrent list subject even if it conflicts with the central legislation, provided that presidential assent is given to such legislations. “ The states are thus, fully empowered to amend the 2013 land law and seek presidential assent before the amendment can be effected. This has been precisely agreed to in the meeting convened by the NITI Aayog. One state has already brought the ame...

The finance ministry on Tuesday formally accepted the recommendations of a committee on retrospective cases of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT), headed by Law Commission chairman A P Shah. With this, the government will withdraw all past cases of MAT on foreign institutional investors ( FIIs). The move came on a day when jittery investors offloaded shares, leading to a fall of about two per cent in the BSE Sensex. The government would modify a contentious provision of the Income Tax Act to make it more transparent and move amendments in this regard in the winter session of Parliament, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said. “ I have accepted the A P Shah panel report submitted on Aug 25, 2015 … It said MAT would not be leviable on FIIs … a necessary amendment in provisions in section 115 JB of the I- T Act would be required and hopefully, we will bring that out in the winter session, or whenever the next Parliament session is held,” he said. “We will issue instructions to field formatio...