CA Online

PM to States: Set up teams to boost GST registrations Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked all states to form special teams and carry out drives to increase the number of traders registered under the goods and services tax. He gave the instructions at a PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation) meeting with top central and state officials on August 30 where he reviewed the progress of GST registrations. According to officials, the PM told states that the teams should go out and guide traders who have to register under the GST regime. He said the exercise should be completed in 15-20 days. The meeting took place a day after the government released a statement saying 13.8 lakh taxpayers out of a total of 72.33 lakh are yet to complete procedural formalities to migrate to GST Network (GSTN). The statement said 58.53 lakh taxpayers have already migrated to GSTN. “The number of new taxpayers who have registered with the GSTN up to 29 August is 18.83 lakh,” it said. In ...

Sebi May Bring Rules for Merger of MF Schemes Move expected to improve transparency and reduce confusion for MF investors India’s capital markets regulator intends to introduce rules that will force mutual funds to merge schemes in the same investment categories, driving long-pending consolidation in an industry that has hitherto ignored informal requests for ending the surfeit of plans. Broadly put, if a mutual fund has two equity schemes with mandates to invest in large-cap stocks, the asset manager will have to merge the investment products once the new rules proposed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) kick in. The step is aimed at improving transparency and reducing the clutter for investors. The Sebi-appointed mutual fund advisory panel, scheduled to meet September 1, will discuss the matter, said three people familiar with the development. Exact details of the proposed rules could not be ascertained, but one official said the norms will require clear categor...

Annual report can reveal the secrets a company wants to hide: Here's how to uncover People who invest on the basis of tips are investing blindly. But even investors who study the fundamentals of companies before buying stocks usually restrict the research to basic details such as revenues, net profit, earnings per share (EPS) and price to earnings ratio (PE ratio). This information is available in the quarterly numbers declared by companies, so most investors don’t feel it necessary to read the bulky annual report that comes once in a year. However, experts say that reading annual reports is necessary because they contain a lot of information that is not available otherwise. “Reading annual reports becomes an advantage because very few people do it,” says Nilesh Shah, Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Mutual Fund. Read it in full The annual report is a bulky document, sometimes running into 180-200 pages. Experts say one should read the full document. “Investors should go throu...

Cheque complaint must name company In a cheque-bounce case, the Supreme Court (SC) ruled last week that every person signing a cheque on behalf of a company on whose account a cheque is drawn does not become the drawer of the cheque. Such a signatory is only a person duly authorised to sign the cheque on behalf of the company/drawer of the cheque. The SC stated so while setting aside the judgment of the Madras High Court in the appeal case, Harihara Krishnan vs J Thomas. The complaint was filed against a director of a company without the company being made a party. The complaint could not stand without the company being made an accused. The company was impleaded after 1,211 days, much after the limitation period. The high court had condoned the delay because the criminal complaint against the director was already filed under the Negotiable Instruments Act (NIA) within time. The SC clarified that the principles of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) could not be applied in a case und...

Real estate companies in churn mode after GST & Rera The real estate sector is slowly catching up after being affected by the goods and services tax (GST) and Real Estate Regulation And Development Act (Rera). It has, however, seen a lot of churning among senior management roles, especially in finance roles. At least half a dozen senior executives, including chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief finance officers (CFOs), have quit and joined rivals or started as independent professionals in the last couple of weeks. “After the GST and Rera, finance, compliance and legal roles have become very critical and are in great demand. Finance heads are also important today to make the right investment decisions,” said Shishir Baijal, chairman, at Knight Frank India, a property consultant. Last month, Hari Prakash Pandey, senior vice-president (finance) and investor relations at Mumbai-based real estate company HDIL, quit and joined privately-held developer Runwal group in Mumbai as t...

I-T dept finds 2,138 new shell firms In a fresh clampdown on shell companies, the income tax (I-T) department has identified 2,138 firms that deposited unaccounted cash during the demonetisation period. Tax officials have found deposits of Rs 1,321 crore so far, and expect the amount to swell to ~5,000 crore. The new data also have details of 3,676 directors and associated entry operators, who deposited cash in banks during the note ban period (November 8 to December 30, 2016). According to tax officials, the fresh data include both listed and unlisted firms, allegedly associated with some of the big corporate entities, which have used these firms to deposit their unaccounted cash in banks. The new list has been prepared on the basis of challan identification numbers (CINs) of the shell firms and then segregated by mapping it with the jurisdiction of the Registrar of Companies for incorporation information of shell companies. The data, so far, show gross amounts of cash deposited i...