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 Rupee slips on rising oil, trade deficit concerns The rupee was one the worst performing emerging market currencies in the world on Tuesday as rising oil prices and worsening trade deficit, which hit a three-and-a-half year high in December, spooked investors. The local unit lost nearly 1% to the US dollar and yields on old benchmark bonds surged to about 22-month high to 7.56% after RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya warned banks to manage interest rate risk on their own. In terms of spot returns, the rupee ranked 23, yielding -0.65% this calendar year, just ahead of Turkish Lira among emerging market, Bloomberg data show. "Poor deficit number, coupled with rising oilBSE 1.46 % prices, is leading to a short-term panic in the markets," said Ashish Vaidya, head of markets for India at Singapore's DBS Bank. "If this trend sustains for a few days, we need to be on a high alert as markets are expected to turn volatile." The rupee closed at 64.04 to a dollar,...

Black money: Govt heat on 120,000 firms  The government on Tuesday said it had decided to strike off the names of 120,000 more companies from the official records for various noncompliances as part of its continuing fight against the black money menace. Nearly 226,000 firms have been deregistered and around 309,000 directors associated with these entities have been disqualified. Minister of State for Corporate Affairs PPChaudhary, who chaired the review meeting of the actions taken with respect to deregistered firms last week, has directed officials to expedite action against the companies that are to be struck off the records. These moves are part of larger efforts to curb illicit fund flows. According to the release, 1,157 cases had been filed with the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for restoration of deregistered companies. “Of these cases, the NCLT had given orders for considering restoration of 180 companies, of which 128 firms have been restored by the registr...

  10 states join eway bill platform; GSTN starts trial run   As many as six more states, including Gujarat, Haryana, and Bihar, on Tuesday joined the government´s centralised eway bill system for interstate road transportation of goods in the goods and services tax (GST) GST regime, taking the total to 10. Under the GST rolled out from July last year, interstate movement of goods beyond 10 km, with a value of Rs 50,000 and above, will mandatorily require eway bill from February 1. Four states —Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Kerala —had already started using eway bill. On Tuesday, six more states —Haryana, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Sikkim, and Jharkhand —have started the trial runs kick started by the GST Network (GSTN). “Other states are also likely to join us soon in this initiative. Transporters and other taxpayers will not be required to visit any tax office or check post under this system and the eway bill can be generated electronically,” GSTN Chie...

 CII urges govt to bring oil, natural gas under GST The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has proposed including all petroleum products in the goods and services tax (GST) at the earliest.The GST was rolled out on July 1 last year, and it subsumed most of the central and state indirect taxes into a single tax. However, petroleum products like crude oil, natural gas, diesel, petrol, and aviation fuel are out of the GST ambit. In its suggestions to the Centre, the CII has said till such time as this is done,CForms should be continued to avoid a high tax incidence on these products. Though the understanding is that the previous value added tax and central sales tax (CST) rules would continue to apply to the excluded products, the related sectors continue to incur huge GST impacts on all inputs without any setoff, as sales of crude oil and natural gas are outside the purview of the GST and are subject to the existing Oil Industry Development Board cess, CST Act, and state ...

GST council may cut rates of 70 items 40 services in the list for last revision before Budget A fortnight ahead of the Union Budget, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council is likely to take up rationalisation of rates of about 70 items, of which at least 40 are services. Amendment in rules may also be taken up to simplify filing and plug some of the loopholes. A fitment committee of officers has made these recommendations to the Council, which will meet on Thursday. With the aim to boost struggling agriculture and rural economy, and encourage clean energy, the Council is expected to rationalise rates of agriculture implements and unconventional fuel buses. It is the last Council meeting before Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presents his last full Budget on 1 February, before general elections in 2019. “Around 40 to 50 services will be taken up for a rate revision in the Council meeting. These are services that were earlier exempt but were taxed under the GST regime. They are...