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The amended bilateral tax treaty between India and Japan, which provides for strengthened exchange of information to help reduce tax evasion, has come into force from October 29. The agreement to amend the 27-year old Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) was signed when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited India in December 2015. Business Standard New Delhi,02th November 2016

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Tuesday tightened rules for credit rating agencies, prescribing more disclosures on suspension and withdrawal of ratings. The capital markets regulator also directed agencies to disclose the nature of their compensation arrangements with rated entities, including exchange of gifts. CRISIL, ICRA and CARE are the major agencies that assign credit ratings to issuers of debt instruments. The Sebi move follows an increase in the number of defaults due to adeteriorating corporate debt profile. “Each rating agency shall frame detailed rating criteria, include the same in its operations manual or internal governing document, and disclose the same on its website,” Sebi said in a circular on Tuesday. Rating agencies have to frame criteria on default recognition and the postdefault curing period. “Each criteria shall be reviewed periodically by the agency and the periodicity for such review shall be disclosed on the agency’s website,”

Assocham has made a pitch to finance minister Arun Jaitley not to levy cess, but raise GST (goods and services tax) rate one-two per cent to garner additional resources to compensate states for any revenue loss on rollout of the new regime from April next year. It said additional cess should not be made applicable as this would lead to distortion and cascading of taxes. Business Standard New Delhi,02th November 2016

Retirement fund body EPFO today said it has issued guidelines to its field offices to settle death claims within seven days and retirement cases before a worker retires from the job. Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya today took stock of the action taken on directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a review meeting on October 26, the Labour Ministry said. Central Provident Fund Commissioner (CPFC) informed the Minister that on Prime Ministers’ directions, EPFO has issued detailed guidelines on retirement and death cases, it added. These guidelines have been issued to the field offices to sensitise them and “take prompt and proactive action to settle the death claims within seven days and in retirement cases on or before the day of retirement,” the Ministry said. It was also stressed upon that grievances on social media need to be replied to expeditiously, it added. The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) today celebrated the 64th Promulgation Day of the Emp

The sticky issue of administration or control over assessees under the goods and services tax (GST) regime is close to a breakthrough. The Centre is likely to propose that the power of audit and scrutiny should be with the Union as well as state governments without any threshold. The two-day meeting between the Centre and state finance ministers to discuss GST norms begins on Thursday. The Centre, however, is likely to audit and scrutinise fewer assessees than states. The issue of administrative control is one of the key matters to be taken up by the GST Council on Thursday and Friday, after an earlier agreement between the Centre and states fell through in the last month meeting. According to an earlier proposal, states were to assess businesses with an annual turnover Rs 1.5 crore, while both the Centre and states were to do so for businesses having higher turnover. The Centre and states had earlier agreed that the Centre will have exclusive power over assessees in the service