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The Cabinet may on Monday take up for approval the supporting GST legislations, which will then be introduced in Parliament as the government sprints to meet the July 1 target date for rollout of the new indirect tax regime. A set of four supporting legislations -- the Compensation Law, the Central-GST or C-GST, Integrated-GST or I-GST and Union Territory-GST or UT-GST -- are likely to together go to the Cabinet for approval. Sources said the Cabinet meeting has been called for Monday morning and the agenda list may not be very long. The GST Council, in its previous two meetings, had given approval to the four legislations as also the State-GST (S-GST) bill. While the S-GST has to be passed by each of the state legislative assemblies, the other four laws have to be approved by Parliament. Once approved, levy of Goods and Services Tax (GST) will get legal backing. The government is hoping the C-GST, I-GST, UT-GST and the GST Compensation laws will be approved in the current se...

Barely 10 per cent of small businesses are inaGSTready position, and just about half have robust IT systems to comply with requirements of the new indirect tax regime, say experts As lawmakers are in the process of clearing the decks for the rollout of the goods and services tax by July 1, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) appear to be the weakest link in corporate India´s efforts to be GSTcompliant by the cutoff date. Of the estimated 8 million registered businesses under the VAT regime, around 90 per cent are SMEs. The GST applies to businesses withaturnover of Rs.20 lakh or more. The threshold is Rs.10 lakh for businesses in the northeastern states. While large companies have engagedabattery of experts to help them transition to the GST regime, SMEs are still struggling to assess the impact on their businesses. “Most remain unaware that the GST will driveabehaviour change and is not justatax change or rate change,” says Bharat Goenka, managing director, Tally Solutions. Tally,...

Inform the insurer about the damage within two to three days Atarecent seminar of insurance brokers and surveyors, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) ChairmanTSVijayan admitted that delays with regard to settlement of commercial claims like motor, fire, marine and others continued to be an issue. Lack of access to surveyors´ reports is another hurdle, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Besides, while retail (individual) policy holders can approach the Insurance Ombudsman withagrievance, in the case of commercial claims there is no such recourse. According to Irdai guidelines, any nonmotor claim where the estimated amount is more than Rs.50,000 would require the appointment of an independent surveyor. Are surveyors truly independent? “These surveyors, though appointed by the insurance company, are independent intermediaries, as they are licensed and regulated by Irdai. They are accountable for the loss they assess to Irdai and n...

Before its pre- inital public offering the sharehoders of BSE fear higher taxes on bonus shares they got in 2007.The union buget had said the shares acquired after 2007 by non payement of secuirties transsaction tax(STT) will attract lomg term cappital gains tax. There is no instance of STT on shares obtained by way of bouns issue.Although the government has hinted that bouns and right issues would be exempt from the new provision,BSE shareholders have knoked on the door of the finance ministry and the sebi want clarity on the issue. Business Standard New Delhi,20th March 2017 

Barely four per cent of direct tax litigation cases pending with the income tax department came under the Dispute Resolution Scheme (DRS) of 2016, with total taxes to the tune of Rs1,250 crore. Extension of the scheme by a month till January 31 failed to elicit much response, resulting in 10,500 applications under the scheme making up for only two per cent of the disputed amount at the level of the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals). Among the total applications, the government has received Rs250 crore so far from the orders passed in 4,100 cases. The applicants will get about two months to pay the tax amount, interest and penalty from the date of orders.  The response suggests only small-value cases came under the scheme, with an average tax incidence of Rs11 lakh. “The scheme got a very poor response compared to what was expected. The scope of the scheme was very limited. Those hopeful of getting a favourable verdict at the appeals commissioner-level did not apply. But th...

The law commission is learn to have decided against recommending  income tax exemption on the money deposited in a single parent's account as maintance for a minor child in a divorce settlement case. In its report to be submitted to the government and the punjab and Haryana high court on Monday,the commission is disinclined to recommend relief for such parents.The issue was referred to it by the Punjab and Haryana High court. Business Standard New Delhi,20th March 2017

DIPP also wants definition of a startup to cover older biotech, medical devices companies The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion has moved a cabinet note that seeks to ease venture capital funding norms for startups and relax the definition of a startup to include older biotechnology and medical device companies. The DIPP has suggested these changes be incorporated under Startup India Action Plan, the Narendra Modi-led government's flagship initiative for nurturing innovation. A senior government official told ET that VC funds will be more willing to finance newer ventures if they are able to spread their risks. The DIPP has proposed that VC firms where government holds a stake be allowed to invest a part of their corpus in firms other than startups, the official said. “This has been one of the reasons why VC funds have not reached out to startups as we expected. They have to be allowed to hedge their risks,“ the official said. Last year, the government had approved ...

The Cabinet may on Monday take up for approval the supporting GST legislations, which will then be introduced in Parliament as the government sprints to meet the July 1 target date for rollout of the new indirect tax regime. A set of four supporting legislations -- the Compensation Law, the Central-GST or C-GST, Integrated-GST or I-GST and Union Territory-GST or UT-GST -- are likely to together go to the Cabinet for approval. Sources said the Cabinet meeting has been called for Monday morning and the agenda list may not be very long. The GST Council, in its previous two meetings, had given approval to the four legislations as also the State-GST (S-GST) bill. While the S-GST has to be passed by each of the state legislative assemblies, the other four laws have to be approved by Parliament. Once approved, levy of Goods and Services Tax (GST) will get legal backing. The government is hoping the C-GST, I-GST, UT-GST and the GST Compensation laws will be approved in the current sessio...