CA Online

FDI inflows in the servicesNSE -0.38 % sector declined by about 23 per cent to  USD  6.7 billion in 2017-18, according to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).  The sector had attracted FDI worth $8.68 billion in 2016-17. The services sector includes finance NSE 0.63 %, banking, insurance, outsourcing, R&D, courier, tech testing and analysis.  As far as overall FDI inflows are concerned, the growth rate recorded a five-year low of 3 per cent at  USD  44.85 billion in 2017-18.  According to Anis Chakravarty, Lead Economist and Partner, Deloitte India, the slowdown in FDI could be because of re-routing of investments to economies like the US which witnessed an increase in interest rates together with a stronger dollar.  "Expectations of further rate hikes by Fed, along with the tariff issues, this year can be expected to result in a further slowdown in foreign inflows.  "The declining growth rate of FDI is more of an exogenous effect and the policy m

FOCUS ON SERIOUS CASES UNDER COMPANIES ACT Committee will look at decriminalising certain offences & resolving most cases without approaching courts The government is looking to decriminalise some of the offences in the Companies Act of 2013 so that courts are freed of these cases to focus on more important ones.  The ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) has set up a 10-member committee to review the penal provisions in the Act.  The committee, to be headed by the MCA secretary, may propose decriminalisation and suggest ways in which to replace the provisions with an in-house mechanism, where a penalty could be levied in instances of default. “This would also allow the trial courts to pay more attention on offences of serious nature,” MCA said in a statement. The committee, which has Uday Kotak, Shardul S Shroff, Sidharth Birla and Bankruptcy Law Reforms Committee chairman TK Vishwanathan among its members, will submit its report with recommendations within 30 days to the go

The GST amendments will be tabled in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament beginning 18 July The government is likely to retrospectively amend laws governing the goods and services tax (GST) to deny transitional credit to taxpayers against cesses levied in the earlier indirect tax regime.  If it goes through with its plan, the Narendra Modi government will be going back on its promise of not making retrospective amendments to tax laws that have an adverse impact on taxpayers. The proposed amendment to the GST law seeks to explicitly exclude cesses levied in a pre-GST regime from allowable transitional credit that can be claimed by companies. Under the transitional credit provision, companies were allowed to claim tax credit against levies such as value added tax and service tax on stock purchased before implementation of GST for a limited period.  Many companies availed the transitional credit facility seeking input tax credit also for cesses such as the Krishi Kalyan cess p