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The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Wednesday increased the investment ceiling of debt mutual funds in housing finance companies (HFCs). "In light of the role of HFCs, especially in affordable housing, and to further the government´s goal under Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana (PMAY), it has now been decided to increase additional exposure limits provided for HFCs in the financial services sector from 10 per cent to 15 per cent," said the regulator inacircular. Under the current guidelines, the sectoral exposure for debt mutual fund schemes is 25 per cent. However, for the financial sector, an additional exposure of up to 10 per cent was allowed only to HFCs. This additional exposure has been increased by five percentage points. Business Standard New Delhi,23rfd February 2017

The incometax department will not carry out any further verification for cash deposits up to Rs.5 lakh made by people above 70 years of age after note ban, but the limit has been fixed at Rs.2.5 lakh for other individuals. Business Standard New Delhi,23rd February 2017

Acharya proposes 2 AMCs and 2 rating agencies for valuation of stressed assets The Reserve Bank of India is proposing its toughest measures yet to recover loans from defaulters by prescribing December deadline for the loan restructuring of top 50 defaulters in a way that the assets turn viable and also in an environment where vigilance departments do not stifle the right economic outcome. Picking up from where former governor Raghuram Rajan left, deputy governor Viral Acharya proposed setting up two asset management companies, one private and the other quasi with government stakeholding, and two rating agencies backing for valuation of stressed assets. The rate of bad loans has come to such an alarming level that banks should be shown some `tough love' by barring those non-performers from taking deposits and lending.In some cases, merger of banks should also be considered to reduce dependence on government capital. “This situation should be a cause for concern to all of us,...

Sachin Dave & Reena Zachariah Govt proposed in budget that anyone who bought shares in unlisted cos before Oct 1, 2004, and not paid STT will have to pay LTCG tax The government may be looking to roll back or tweak a budget announcement, imposing long-term capital gains (LTCG) tax on holders of ESOPs and private equity investors, people close to the development said. In the budget, the government had introduced a provision whereby anyone who acquired shares in unlisted companies before October 1, 2004, and had not paid securities transaction tax (STT) will be liable to pay 10% LTCG tax. “Several representations were made by stake holders, and the government may look into this.While the demand is for a complete rollback, the government may come out with a clarification so that genuine investors are exempted,“ a person close to the development said. The government had brought the provision to plug a loophole being used to evade taxes. “Several representations were made by the...

Subscribers of Employees´ Provident Fund Organisation can now withdraw money from their account using one common form and will not be required to file documents like marriage invitation cards for taking advances. Business Standard New Delhi,22 February 2017

Any bank account suspected to have been ´misused´ for money laundering or shell company operations won´t be exempted from probe under ´Operation Clean Money´ despite having low deposits, the CBDT said on Tuesday. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the policymaking body of the department, issued specific guidelines to ascertain ifaparticular cash deposit is genuine or not and withaview to "maintain consistent approach during verification" under ´Operation Clean Money´ where 1.8 million people were contacted by the taxman. "In case, there is information or apprehension/ suspicion thataparticular bank account(s) has been misused for money laundering, tax evasion, entry operations in shell companies, the monetary cutoff or cash balance based cut off prescribed in clauses above requiring noverification, shall not be applicable," it said. The instructions earlier made it clear that in case of an individual (other than minors) not having any business income, ...

Settling two contentious issues —definition of territorial waters and administration of interstate transfers —appears key to the passage of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill in the second half of the Budget session, beginning in the second week of March. Issues over compensation law were cleared by the GST Council last week. It will take up the remaining Bills —Central GST, State GST and Integrated IGST —on March 4 and 5. Resolving these issues would make way for the July 1 rollout of the uniform indirect tax legislation. The Council has sought the views ofalaw committee on the matter. "All GST laws are being vetted. There are areas of concern. Constitutional conflicts that will have to be carefully negotiated," saidasenior government official. On the issue of territorial waters, the Centre has agreed to give states the power to collect taxes on economic activities within 12 nautical miles. But it did not agree to treat these areas as part of the relevant state´s te...

Officials may issue notices, carry out surveys in some big cases where no response has come Income Tax officials could soon be at your doorstep if you have deposited a huge amount during the note-swapping exercise last year, and have not yet explained the source of the cash. “We have tried to keep the exercise non-intrusive. But if people have not come forward, then some kind of verification is needed especially in cases that involve deposits of large sums,“ a senior income-tax department official told ET. Under the `Operation Clean Money', the I-T department had sent out SMSes and e-mails to about 18 lakh people who deposited over `5 lakh each during the 50-day window from November 10 to December 30, because the desposits did not tally with their income. The depositors were asked by the I-T department to explain the source of the money by logging in to its portal. By February 15, about 7.3 lakh people responded to the emails and ex plained their deposits. According to th...

Making A Monetary Difference The upcoming payments bank by IndiaPost will make it possible to send and receive money only on the basis of the Aadhaar number Your 12-digit Aadhaar number could soon become your single-point payment address. With the upcoming payments bank by IndiaPost, over 112 crore Indians will be able to send and receive money only on the basis of the Aadhaar number; it won't not matter whether it is linked to a bank account or not. IndiaPost CEO AP Singh told ET that currently, Aadhaar is not a payment address in itself, but the payments bank, which plans to start operations from September 2017, will change that. The bank, which hopes to cover at least 650 districts of the country in the initial stage, aims to “simplify and universalise“ payments systems. “We will bring out a solution to make Aadhaar a payment address, which will work with or without a bank account.That means that people who already have an Aadhaar should be able to receive payment from a...

Existing mutual fund (MF) schemes will not require approval ofamajority of unitholders to invest in the derivatives segment provided the investors are given the exit option, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said on Monday. Among other conditions, the relaxation, effective immediately, would be in place only if the MF scheme concerned provides the investors 30 days´ time to exit the scheme without any charges. It would be applicable for existing mutual funds, whose scheme information documents (SIDs) do not envisage investments in derivatives. The latest decision has been taken in view of the challenges involved in seeking the consent ofamajority of unitholders due to their vast geographical spread, according to the regulator. Business Standard New Delhi,21st February 2017

The income tax( IT) department is likely to launch the second phase of Operation Clean Money next month to close in on unaccounted money making its way into banks but may ignore standalone deposits below Rs.5 lakh for now. The IT department will appoint two data analytics firms in the next 10 days to analyse the deposits in bank accounts before and after November 8 last year— the day the government decided to junk 86 percent of thecurrency in circulation. Theexercisewill attempttolinkindividuals withmultipleaccountsor permanentaccount numbers, officialssaid. Business Standard New Delhi,21st February 2017