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Aadhaar now mandatory for death certificates Directive applicable across the country, except Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and Meghalaya Come October 1, death certificates will be issued only after relatives of the deceased provide Aadhaar number to authorities, a government notification said on Friday. The notification by the Office of the Registrar General, which functions under the home ministry, said an applicant is required to provide Aadhaar number or enrolment ID number (EID) of the deceased and other details as sought in the application for death certificate for the purpose of establishing the identity of the deceased. However, if the applicant is not aware of the Aadhaar number or EID of the deceased, he or she will be required to provide a certificate that the deceased person did not possess Aadhaar number to the best of his or her knowledge, the notification said. The use of Aadhaar for the applicants of death certificate will result in  ensuring accuracy of the d...

Differential Tax Levy under GST:   Food Firms May De-Register Trademarks The government’s decision to charge an enhanced tax rate on trademark food brands is leading several rice, wheat and cereal manufacturers to consider de-registering their product trademarks. Irked by the June 28 central government notification fixing a 5 per cent goods and services tax (GST) rate on food items packaged in unit containers and bearing registered brand names, the industry has made several representations to the government to reconsider the differential tax levy, which these players say is creating an unlevel playing field within these highly-competitive and low-margin industries. Sources say that the move has affected the packaged rice industry the hardest and allowed the un-registered market leaders, India Gate and Daawat, to gain advantage as compared to other registered brands such as Kohinoor and Lal Qilla. Smaller players are even more worried with this enhanced rat...

Sebi widens default disclosure rule Bank loans worth at least Rs 12 lakh crore have at present been classified as NPAs The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has made it compulsory for listed companies to make a disclosure to the stock exchanges if they default on any interest or principal payment obligation to banks. At present, under Sebi’s Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements, companies have to make specific disclosures if there is a delay or default in payment of interest or principal on only debt securities such as non-convertible debentures, listed non-convertible redeemable preference shares or foreign currency convertible bonds. There was no stipulation on companies to make disclosures with regard to loans taken from banks and financial institutions. That changes with the Friday announcement.  Sebi has said companies will now have to make disclosures for any default on debt securities such as commercial paper or medium-term n...

GST Council may finalise e-way rules today GST provision requires goods more than Rs 50,000 to be pre-registered online before it can be moved   The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council is likely to lower tax rate on Saturday on job works making fabric to garments to 5 per cent and put in place a mechanism for online registration of goods above a certain value before they can be transported. The Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, will also review at its meeting the implementation of the GST regime since July 1 and may finalise a mechanism to operationalise anti-profiteering provision to protect consumer interest.   Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Chairperson Vanaja Sarna said the movement of goods between states has smoothened with 25 out of 29 states abolishing check posts.   "About 25 states have removed those check posts. So far, it has been going all right," she told PTI.   This would further smoothen a...

With a majority of small finance banks already operational, a challenging start has already forced a number of them to tweak lending strategies. Due to demonetisation, coupled with rumours of debt waiver, the delinquency rates for micro-lending has shot up as high as 10 per cent, against about one to two per cent prior to note ban. Hence, to bypass the risk associated with group lending, several small finance banks are looking to quickly migrate to secured individual lending, mostly to non-agriculture sectors. “We are planning to diversify our portfolio to minimise the risk associated with group lending,” said Rajeev Yadav, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO), Fincare. “As a bank, that would anyway have been a focus area. However, due to demonetisation, there is an additional focus to move quicker than anticipated to individual lending.” From about 90 per cent unsecured group lending portfolio, Fincare is looking to reduce it to around 50 per ...

  The government will scrutinise 30,000 cases among taxpayers, individual and non-individual, who tried regularising their unaccounted incomes by filing returns in response to the note ban in November last year.   Meanwhile, there has been 21 per cent growth in the online filing of tax returns as of August 1, with 23.3 million individuals filing returns for the financial year 2016-17, against 19.2 million in the corresponding period last year, when growth was 10 per cent.    The jump could be owing to demonetisation, the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST), and other back money-deterrent measures announced by the government.   “We have selected 30,000 cases for partial scrutiny and full scrutiny of entities and individuals who tried to regularise their unaccounted income during demonetisation,” said a senior official in the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).   The income-tax (I-T) department has identified peo...