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Sebi likely to get specific powers to regulate activities that escape purview of any financial regulator The Securities and Exchange Board of India or Sebi may get additional powers to regulate money-pooling activities that currently do not come under any other financial sector regulator and those where states have limited powers to act, said three people familiar with the development. The government is in advanced stages of drafting a new legislation to this effect, confirmed the people cited above, requesting anonymity. While the ultimate power to control all types of money-pooling activities (except collective investment schemes or CIS) will remain with the central government under the proposed law, Sebi will be given specific powers to regulate those that currently escape the purview of any other financial regulator. An e-mail sent to Sebi on Friday remained unanswered. “Ideally, all those entities which currently act as chit funds or by any other name that come under s...

The Central Board of Excise and Customs ( CBEC) has developed an ‘ integrated declaration’ to incorporate all the information required for import clearance by various government agencies into the electronic format of the bill of entry. This is to be filed electronically at a single entry point, the Customs Gateway. Separate application forms required by different agencies such as the Drugs Controller, Textile Committee, etc, would be dispensed with. This important step to provide the importers a single point interface for clearance of imported goods will go online from April 1, for consignments to be cleared under the Indian Customs EDI Systems but not for clearance of imported goods in the manual mode. The integrated declaration has a portion to capture the text of different types of declarations, undertakings and letters of guarantee, etc, in the form of statements. These statements have been standardised and codified. While giving the integrated declaration, the importer can...

The govt will treat bonds and debentures as a single security for calculating the holding period without factoring in conversion date, a move that will help companies raise capital In a significant boost to financial instruments such as convertible debentures, the government has clarified the tax provisions relating to them, addressing lacunae that had discouraged companies from using them to raise capital. The government will treat bonds and debentures as a single security for calculating the holding period without factoring in the conversion date, a decision that could make investors eligible for long-term capital gains tax exemption. Thus, the holding period for the long-term capital gains tax will be from the date a debenture or bond is acquired and not from the day the debenture is converted to shares. The government will treat it as a single security for calculating the holding period even after conversion. The Central Board of Direct Taxes, the apex direct taxes body, ...

The department earlier used to check against duplicity of PAN in a manual fashion which was not foolproof but the new electronic system is very accurate” PAN cards, allowing them to ‘ kill’ it. An ambitious electronic platform called the Income Tax Business ApplicationPermanent Account Number (ITBA- PAN) has been operationalised. It will help the taxman and PAN issuing intermediaries identify such duplicate numbers every time a new application for generation of the I- T department- issued unique identity reaches their portals. “The department earlier used to check against duplicity of PAN in a manual fashion which was not foolproof. The new electronic system is very accurate,” a senior official said. In old PAN cards, he said, the manual system would go on. “There are not many such cases in the old system. Those are being weeded out as and when information is obtained,” he said. The department, to ensure that no entity is able to evade tax by holding two PAN cards, has been t...

The Supreme Court has ruled that if there is a delay in the refund of excise duty, the assessee firm is entitled to interest on the amount The refund claim should be decided within three months from the date of the application. After that, interest shall be paid according to Section 11BB of the Central Excise Tariff Act, the court stated while dismissing the appeal of the revenue authorities in the case, Union of India vs Hamdard Laboratories. The company was engaged in the manufacture and sale of various items including Rooh Afza, a sweetened non- alcoholic beverage. There was long litigation over the question whether it was a beverage or a concentrate and how it should be classified for purposes of excise duty. The firm won the case in the Allahabad High Court, which ruled that it is a non- alcoholic beverage. The Supreme Court upheld it. The firm then applied for refund. It was given without interest; thus starting another round of litigation in the high court and the Supreme Cour...

It would perhaps make more sense if the finance ministry gave greater emphasis on the need for phasing out concessions in indirect taxes Of the many Budget numbers that finance ministers have been dishing out every February over the last several years, the ones that are the least discussed or scrutinised pertain to tax revenues lost on account of the various concessions and incentives doled out by the government. It is possible to argue that this is not a real revenue loss. This is because denying those concessions or exemptions could eliminate the losses under those tax heads, but the move could adversely affect several other types of economic activities reducing revenue flows from those areas. So, the overall gain could well be negligible and benefits of those concessions for specific sectors would be lost. Nevertheless, the impact of these concessions on tax collections and the potential revenue loss numbers have reached a level that governments must start taking serious note ...

Coincides with withdrawal of their strike on Jaitley assurances of no harassment or red tape Jewellers have started getting tax notices over the one per cent excise duty imposed by the Budget for 2016- 17, even as they called off their 18- day strike on the issue from Saturday evening, after assurances from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley against harassment. The notices ask jewellers to furnish details of turnover, copies of balance sheets and income tax returns. “It is ironic that as the minister assured us against harassment by tax officials, many of us have already started receiving notices. There is ahuge disconnect between the policy makers and the tax officials. We do not want inspector raj to return to the sector,” said a jeweller, who did not wish to be named. According to the notices, reviewed by Business   Standard, jewellers have been asked to provide their turnover for the past two years in some cases and expected turnover for March 2016. They have also been ask...

www.caonline.in News... 1.Sec. 50C bonafide transaction without alleged higher receipt not covered. [Gulf Oil Corporation Ltd. vs. ACIT (ITAT Hyderabad)]. 2.Distributorship of goods cannot be regarded as service – AAR. [In RE: M/s. Creative Problem Solving India (Authority for Advance Ruling) (Central Excise, Customs and Service Tax)]. 3.No Service Tax on web hosting and domain name registration/ transfer services provided by go daddy: AAR. [ M/s Go Daddy India Web Services Pvt. Ltd. (Authority for Advance Ruling) (Central Excise, Customs and Service Tax)]. 4.Offline payment methods- challan, NEFT, pay later disabled for company services with effect from 19.3.2016 till the launch of new MCA21 portal (likely to be 27.3.2016). 5.Today, 21.03.2016 is the last date for deposit of ESI for the month of February, 2016. 6.Today, 21.03.2016 is the last date for e-payment of DVAT & CST for the month of February, 2016. For more News Like us on https://www.facebook.com/caonlineoffici...