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The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has set Rs.500 crore in one of the past three years as the minimum turnover for a commodity to remain eligible for futures trading on exchanges. This will come into effect from April 1. “For any commodity to continue to be eligible for futures trading on exchanges, it should have an annual turnover of more than Rs.500 crore across all national commodity derivatives exchanges in at least one of the last three financial years,” Sebi said in a circular on Friday. A commodity that generates less than Rs.2 crore a day in trading volume across all contracts and exchanges will thus be delisted. This is aimed at parking of funds in illiquid contracts to evade taxes. Sebi has provided three years of gestation for commodities from their launch or re-launch dates. “Exchanges earn Rs.250 per day for a commodity generating Rs.1 crore of turnover. While the norms are good, the limit should have been much higher for any exchange to launch co...

The Income-Tax(I-T)department has received confirmations for over Rs.300 crore declarations from across the country till now as part of the on going black money window called the Pradhan Mantri GaribKalyanYojna(PMGKY), brought out by the government post demonetisation. Officials said I-Tdepartment offices across the country have got a number of small to big declarations in this regard after the taxman launched a large number of search,survey, seizure and electronic database analysis operations to check stash funds hoarded orgenerated after the note ban.  Business Standard New Delhi,21st January 2017

The Railway Ministry on Friday spelt out the procedure for cancelling tickets booked through Point of Sale (PoS) machines as it prepares to install 10,000 of them across ticket reservation counters in a bid to encourage cashless transactions following demonetisation. In case of tickets booked through SBI PoS machines at a reservation counter, a customer can approach a counter and cancel his ticket. He doesn't need to swipe his card again for cancellation as the refund will be credited directly to his or her bank account within 7 days, according to a statement issued by the Railway Ministry. Where a customer has booked his ticket through a non-SBI PoS the customer needs to swipe his credit or debit card at the PoS machine at the time of cancellation. The refund amount will then be credited to his or her account. However, at a location where there is no PoS a Ticket Deposit Receipt (TDR) will be issued to affect the refund. In a situation where a customer has booked an e-ticket...

Market Regulator Plans To Cut Post-IPO Listing To 4 Days Sebi chairman U K Sinha said on Friday the market watchdog may further tighten rules governing Participatory Notes (P-Notes), which are a financial derivative product used by foreign investors to bypass the regulatory system when entering the Indian market. He also said the regulator is working to cut down the time taken for companies to list their shares on the exchanges post public offerings to four days from six days now. P-Notes had been identified by a special investigation team (SIT) -looking into the menace of black money under orders from the Supreme Court -as one of the probable routes that facilitate generation and use of unaccounted funds. “SIT is constantly monitoring the P-Note data and is not very comfortable with the current process of issue and administration of the same. Further tightening of norms governing P-notes could happen to address the concerns of SIT,“ Sinha said. He was delivering the inaugural sp...

Govt notification comes after irregularities were found in several co-op banks during demonetisation The government has barred cooperative banks from accepting deposits under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Deposit Scheme (PMGKDS). There have been irregularities discovered in cooperative banks during the demonetisation process that the income tax department is investigating. “It is clarified that co-operative banks are not authorised banks to accept deposits under PMGKDS, 2016,“ a finance ministry statement said on Friday. The deposit scheme is part of the Taxation and Investment Regime for Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana, 2016 under which a declarant has to deposit 25% of the declared undisclosed income in an authorised bank as notified by the government. They have to also pay 50% of the amount declared in tax and penalty. “Application for the deposit in the form of Bonds Ledger Account shall be received by any banking company, other than Co-operative Banks, to which the Ba...

Key benefits given to Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) under amended tax treaties with Singapore, Cyprus and Mauritius may be negated by the implementation of General Anti-Avoidance Rules (Gaar). Domestic anti-avoidance law will prevail over treaty benefits in the event of a dispute under the Singapore and Mauriti us treaties. This could threaten the lower tax rate for FPIs in the two years between April 1, 2017, and March 31, 2019. Under the amended treaties, short term capital gains tax for FPIs is 15%. However, dur ing the transition window cited above, this will be 7.5%, subsequently dou bling to 15%. The tax trea ties with these countries were amended last year. Many FPIs are also worried that benefits under the amended treaties for derivatives and debt instruments may be questioned under Gaar. Tax officials confirmed that Gaar will take effect on April 1 and that the government is not looking at issuing any additional regulations before March 31 at a meeting held recent...

Market regulator Sebi has issued eligibility criteria for allowing, retaining and reintroduction of commodities for trading in the futures market. For any commodity to continue to be eligible for futures trading on a commodity exchange, it should have an annual turnover of over . 500 crore across all national com` modity derivatives exchanges in at least one of the last three finan cial years. For validating this criteria, a gestation period of three years is provided for commodities from the launch date relaunch date, as applicable. Once a commodity becomes ineligible for derivatives trading due to not satisfying the retention criteria, the exchanges shall not reconsider such commodity for relaunching contract for a minimum period of one year. Further, a commodity which is discontinued suspended by an exchange on its platform, it shall not be reconsidered by the concerned exchange for relaunching of derivatives contract at least for a minimum period of one year. Issues such as s...