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LTCG tax will not impact NPS, says PFRDA chairman The LTCG tax proposal in the Budget 2018 will not have much impact on the National Pension Scheme (NPS), says Hemant Contractor, chairman of PFRDA The proposal of long-term capital gains (LTCG) tax will not have much impact on the National Pension Scheme (NPS), a top Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) official has said.“It will not have much impact on us. The investments in the National Pension System are made by our trust (NPS Trust) which is a tax-exempted body. As far as pension investments are concerned, LTCG will not have an impact,” PFRDA chairman Hemant Contractor said here on Tuesday. However, it will have an impact on tier II accounts also known as non-pension account, he said on the sidelines of a conference on the NPS in association with Stock Holding Corp.NPS manages two types of accounts—tier I and tier II. “Tier II has no tax benefits. Tier II account would be impacted but investments corpus

Earnings growth rises to 6 quarter high India Inc reported strong earnings growth in the December 2017 quarter after declines in the previous two quarters. This was largely expected given the lower base effect due to demonetisation in the year-ago quarter. What’s more encouraging is that some analysts believe that the momentum will continue in the coming quarters. Improved sales volume, ability to increase product prices to pass on higher input costs, better project execution and increasing order books are some of the factors that support the optimism. In the December quarter, net profit of a sample of 2,043 companies rose to a sixquarter high of 27.5 per cent year-on-year. Net sales rose by 11.5 per cent. In the previous quarter, sales had risen by 8.7 per cent, while net profit had fallen by 1 per cent. The sample excluded banking and finance companies.After excluding oil and gas companies along with banks and finance entities, sales and profit growth in the December 2017 quart

SEBI READIES P-NOTE FRAMEWORK FOR GIFT CITY Market regulator plans to relax norms for onshore securities Market regulator Sebi is readying a framework for issuance of participatory notes (p-notes) from international financial services centres such as GIFT City. It is in talks with FPIs, which act as issuers of p-notes, sources said. The move comes at a time when Indian bourses have terminated licensing of indices and data-feed agreements with their foreign counterparts. This will force overseas investors to either invest directly or come through GIFT City to trade in Indian securities. PAVAN BURUGULA writes The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is readying a framework for issuance of participatory notes (p-notes) from the international financial services centres (IFSCs) such as GIFT City. P-notes are derivative instruments that allow overseas investors to invest in a domestic security without having to directly register with Sebi. The market regulator is in talks wi

GSTN to ensure stakeholder familiarity before reintroducing e-way bill GST Network Chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey has said the company will try to ensure that stakeholders become fully familiar with the technology system before the re-rollout of the e-way bill system. Under the Goods and Services and Tax, which was rolled out from July 1 last year, transporters of goods worth more than Rs 50,000 are required to carry electronic or e-way bill. The e-way bill system was launched by GSTN on February 1 after conducting pilot for over a fortnight, but faced technical glitches following which its implementation had to be postponed. In an interview to PTI, Pandey said GSTN is conducting extended pilot for the e-way bill mechanism and has suggested to states that they should ask their transporters to undertake trial run for e-way bill generation on the portal. "As soon as there is a readiness of the system and stakeholders, we will roll it out. We are trying to do it as early as pos

RBI norms add to NCLT burden The National Company Law Tribunal, already burdened with about 2,000 bankruptcy cases pending, may see a flurry of fresh cases that may affect time-bound resolution after the banking regulator revamped the way loan defaults are to be handled, lawyers and bankers said. Right now, only some of the large cases are being tried, but there are several cases in the SME (small and medium enterprise) and mid-cap space where we have done restructuring and it has failed. If we send so many of these cases to NCLT, I don’t know how the logistics will work,” said a banker. The RBI on Monday scrapped all debt restructuring schemes and made resolution of bad loans time bound with the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code becoming the main tool to deal with defaulters. RBI said accounts with aggregate debt of more than Rs 2,000 crore will have to be taken to NCLT within 15 days if a resolution plan does not bear fruit in 180 days. “NCLT is already under stress because