CA Online

Come October, mutual fund (MF) investors will be able to see how much their MF agents have been earning for their services relating to the investments. Investors will also know how much the CEO, CIO and COO of their fund house is being paid annually. Raising the bar for transparency in the financial services sector, markets regulator Sebi on Friday asked all fund houses to disclose all this information, along with expense ratio and the ratio of the CEO's remuneration to the average pay of other employees of the fund house. The Sebi circular said that all fund houses will disclose the “amount of actual commission paid by MFs to distributors (in absolute terms) during the half-year period against the concerned investor's total investments in each MF scheme. The term `commission' here refers to all direct monetary payments and other payments made in the form of giftsrewards, trips, event sponsorships, etc by MFs to distributors“. What this means is that, if as an MF in...

Justifying Lok Sabha's rejecting the amendments made by the Upper house to the Aadhaar Bill, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said adoption of changes would have pushed the legislation, aimed at streamlining the payment of benefits, into realms of unconstitutionality. Acceptance of the amendments would have led to much wider encroachment of the Right of Privacy and an auditor or an anti-corruption authority overseeing issues of national security, he said. “These lacunae would have pushed the Aadhaar law to the realm of unconstitutionality. Obviously, the Lok Sabha did not agree with the above suggestions, and in my view, rightly so,” he said in a Facebook post. The Lok Sabha on the last of the first half of Budget session on Wednesday waited for Rajya Sabha to decide on the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, and then swiftly rejected the amendments made to the legislation. The amendments to be bill in Rajya...

CBDT to reopen cases, conduct detailed inquiry of taxpayers who invested in such shares After the securities market regulator, the income tax department has clamped on individuals misusing the stock exchange platform for evading taxes and converting black money into white. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has directed officers to open cases against individual taxpayers who have booked capital gains or losses by transacting in penny stocks. These are scrips whose value is typically no more than a few rupees each. These stocks are considered easy to manipulate and exploited to convert black money into white, evade taxes and make illicit trading gains. The CBDT letter, dated this Wednesday, said information on individuals who transacted in penny stocks was being made available to officers for further scrutiny and reopening of cases under Section 148 of the I- T Act. The letter comes after the Kolkata Investigation Directorate found prices of a large number of penny stock...

Maharashtra Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar on Friday proposed a tax on two- and three- wheelers for personal use while tabling the state’s Budget for 2016- 17 with an estimated revenue deficit of Rs.3,644 crore. At present, such vehicles are taxed at seven per cent. The minister proposed an eight per cent tax for vehicles up to 99 cc, nine per cent for 100- 299 cc and 10 per cent for 300 cc and above. However, he proposed that the tax on vehicles in the name of companies, undertakings and on imported vehicles be levied at twice the respective rates. Presenting the second Budget of the BJP- led government at a time when the state is reeling from a severe drought, Mungantiwar projected revenue mobilisation of Rs. 2,20,810 crore against revenue expenditure of Rs. 2,24,454 crore. Mungantiwar said the revenue deficit, which was estimated at ? 3,757 crore by the end of 2015- 16, had been revised to ? 9,209 crore largely due to expenses incurred on drought relief in over 15,000 v...

The Union finance ministry said on Friday it would make further changes in the Gold Monetisation Scheme ( GMS), which hasnt been able to attract many takers. This was after a meeting here with stakeholders. Only three tonnes of gold have come so far; it was a little over a tonne till the first week of February. It was launched last November and, after the tepid interest, was modified towards the end of January. Clearly, that wasnt enough. Shaktikanta Das, secretary, department of economic affairs, said after the meeting, “ We reviewed the difficulties and took suggestions. These are under consideration. In the long term, the scheme should succeed.” Among the key proposals a ministry official said they were considering are “ a proposal from Indian Bullion and Jewellers Association ( Ibja) to act as an aggregator and offer an alternative to the hallmarking centres which have to play the role of collecting and purity testing centres. There was another suggestion to increase the te...

The government on Friday slashed the interest rates on all small savings schemes, including Public Provident Fund, by 60 basis points, and Kisan Vikas Patra, by 90 basis points, to create conducive environment for the Reserve Bank of India to ease monetary policy rates further, and help banks transmit rate cuts to customers. The new interest rates for 12 small savings schemes, including term deposits of one to five years’ maturity, five- year recurring deposit, five- year Senior Citizen Savings Scheme, five- year Monthly Income Scheme, Sukanya Samriddhi Account Scheme, and National Savings Certificate will be for the period of April 1, 2016 to June 30, 2016. As announced by the finance ministry in February, this is different from previous years where the interest rates of such schemes were reset once a year. Now onwards, the rates will be reset every quarter, to be better linked with government securities of comparable maturity. “This is a move to align small savings schemes to...

www.caonline.in News... 1.Govt: Cuts Interest Rate On 5-Year Time Deposit To 7.9% From 8.5%. 2.Govt: Cuts Interest Rate On 3-Year Time Deposit To 7.4% From 8.4%. 3.Govt: Cuts Interest Rate On 2-Year Time Deposit To 7.2% From 8.4%. 4.Govt: Cuts Interest Rate On 1-Year Time Deposit To 7.1% From 8.4%. 5.Govt: Cuts Interest Rate On Kisan Vikas Patra To 7.8% From 8.7%. 6.Govt: Cuts Interest Rate On Public Provident Fund To 8.1% From 8.7%. 7.Reopening to review original assessment is not permitted. [Munjal Showa Limited vs. DCIT (Delhi High Court)] 8.CBDT directs reopening assessments in claim of bogus capital gains / loss in penny investment scam by taxpayers vide letter dated 16.03.2016. For more News Like us on https://www.facebook.com/caonlineofficial Or Subscribe on mail visit : www.caonline.in