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www.caonline.in News... 1. RBI issues directions for lending to Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Sector [Master Direction FIDD.MSME & NFS.3/06.02.31/2016-17]. 2. Closure of EPCG authorizations in case of supplies to SEZ units which have been made prior to 01.4.2015 and where exports proceeds have not been realized through Foreign Currency Account (FCA) of the SEZ unit. 3. The Centre has decided not to raise the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit on newspapers and periodicals to 49 per cent from 26 per cent. 4. Challan ITNS 285 is notified for Equalization Levy of 6% on payment of more than 1 lakh in F.Y. for online advertisement etc. to non-resident not having PE in India. 5. CBDT has notified challan no. /ITNS 286 for Payment of Taxes under The Income Declaration Scheme, 2016.

Govt keen to weed out exemptions & lower corporate tax to global rate of 25% With the government keen to weed out exemptions and lower the corporate tax rate to an internationally comparable 25%, it is not willing to give any fresh ones. As a result, the proposed Japanese enclaves for industries have hit a tax wall with the revenue department making it clear that it cannot offer sops against its overall philosophy of ending them. This issue figured in an inter-ministerial meeting called by Niti Aayog, said a government official aware of the matter. “The revenue department is not in favour of taking up any fresh ex emptions,“ the official said. The final decision will be taken at the highest level. The industrial townships are envisaged as integrated industrial parks with readymade operational platforms having world-class infrastructure, plug-and-play factories and investment incentives for Japanese firms. This is part of the Japanese govern ment's initiative to double i...

The Commodity Derivatives Advisory Committee of the Securities and Exchange Board of India ( Sebi) will meet on Friday with senior officials of the latter, to give a final shape to the rules on options trading in commodity futures, beside revising the warehousing norms to ensure good delivery on settlement. The decision taken, after discussing with the advisory committee, will be placed before the regulator’s board, to finalise the regulations. According to knowledgeable sources, three commodities in each segment, agricultural and non- agricultural, have been proposed for introducing options. It appears commodities from the soya and guar segments are preferred in the former. From the non- agri segment, it is likely that gold, silver and crude oil will be finalised. All these These have better liquidity and both the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange and the Multi Commodity Exchange, respectively, will be able to introduce the options. In the equity segments, options ar...

Even as the Union government strives to build consensus over the constitution amendment Bill for a goods and services tax (GST), a turf war between indirect tax departments of the Centre and states over the assessment and adjudication powers under the proposed regime continues. The GST committee, set up by the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), has proposed two options in its report to iron out the administrative differences under the unified indirect tax regime. Although Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will take a final call on the matter, the issue is likely to be discussed on Tuesday at the meeting of state finance ministers’ empowered committee on GST. States are demanding that they should get sole administrative powers to carry out assessment, scrutiny and passing of orders for entities and traders up to an annual turnover of Rs 1.5 crore and beyond that both states and the Centre should have these powers. The CBEC committee, headed by its member Ram Tirath, has rec...

Armed with information on about nine million high value transactions without permanent account numbers (PANs) over a span of eight years, the income- tax department plans to initially issue 700,000 letters to individuals in this regard, asking them to disclose all about their spending. “The department has these details for the period 2009- 10 to 2016- 17,” the finance ministry stated on Thursday. The department has scrutinised the annual information returns for high value transactions — cash deposits of over Rs. 10 lakh in a savings bank account, sale/ purchase of immovable property valued at Rs. 30 lakh or more, etc — and many of these did not have a linked PAN. These returns are information received from third- party sources like banks, mutual funds and registrars about such high- value transactions. The department had, with the help of inhouse computer techniques, grouped such non- PAN transactions and identified 700,000 ‘high- risk clusters’, having around 1.4 million non- PA...

There are growing concerns that over 5 million mutual fund folios are likely to be closed or the account frozen due to non-compliance with the US’ Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act or FATCA. According to the Association of Mutual Fund of India (Amfi), mutual fund investments of about Rs.1 lakh crore could be affected prompting the association to approach the finance ministry to address the issue. “The matter should get resolved… We have already approached the finance ministry for a solution,” said A Balasubra-manian, vice-chairman of Amfi. The deadline for furnishing details under FATCA is August 31, and still a large number of mutual fund investors haven’t yet complied with it. According to industry estimates, around 5.2-5.4 million folios may be affected. “It is unlikely that there will be any freezing of accounts, but at the same time there should compliance, so the government should look at giving an extension as freezing of accounts could lead to collapse of the system,...