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The Centre has releasedaset of draft guidelines for digital wallet companies as part of its efforts to promote electronic payments while ensuring the security of transactions. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued on Wednesday the draft Information Technology (Security of Prepaid Payment Instruments) Rules 2017 for public consultation, and will take suggestions until March 20. The draft rules underline security parameters that digital wallet companies, such as Paytm, FreeCharge and Mobikwik, will have to follow. They also stipulate standards for data protection and customer grievance redressal. Every prepaid payment instrument (PPI), or digital wallet, has been asked to developasecurity policy based on the rules and standards set by the government. “Every ePPI issuer shall review the security measures at least onceayear, and after any major security incident or breach or beforeamajor change to its infrastructure or procedures,” read the draft rules. Besides, t...

Direct tax collection grew by 10.7 per cent in the first 11 months of this financial year (April 2016 till February 2017) over the same periodayear before, less than the set target. The fullyear target is Rs.8.47 lakh crore or 14.3 per cent more. With Rs.6.17 lakh crore collected in these 11 months, March has to seea20plus per cent growth to achieve the target. The subdued tax numbers were due to fall in growth of both corporation tax due to stillawaited recovery in the performance of companies and personal income tax in AprilFebruary compared to AprilJanuary period. “We are hopeful of achieving the target. Net tax collections have been low due to substantially higher refunds issued compared to the previous financial year. Besides, the corporate sector is yet to showapickup,” saidagovernment official. Corporation tax growth was 2.6 per cent up to February, slower than the 2.9 per cent in the period to January. Personal income tax grew 20 per cent up to February, against 23.1 per ce...

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will holdameeting on Friday with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel and other top central bank officials to discuss the burgeoning toxic asset levels in the banking system and to draw upapossible structure ofastateowned ´bad bank´ or asset management company (AMC) that will take over nonperforming assets (NPAs) and enable banks to clean up their balance sheets. Also, issues such as how much ofahaircutabank must undertake in different stress account cases and the state of existing asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) will likely be discussed, Business Standard has learnt from finance ministry and RBI sources. The meeting will happen over video and will be attended by Patel and all RBI deputy governors. While the ´bad bank´ or AMC will be largely in line with what the RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya has proposed, officials in the RBI and the finance ministry´s department of financial services are working on its possible structure. So...

As the Budget session of Parliament resumed on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hoped there will be a breakthrough on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill and that issues will be discussed in a democratic manner. “We hope that there will be a breakthrough on the GST because all states have positively cooperated. All political parties have also extended cooperation in a positive way,“ he told reporters outside Parliament. The second leg of the Budget session resumed on Thursday after about a month-long recess. “We are meeting after a break and the budget proposals will be discussed in details,“ he sa id. Hoping for a healthy debate in the House, the Prime Minister said, “I believe that the level of discussion will go to a higher level. Attention will be drawn towards the issues related to the poor people.“ “We are moving ahead with the consent of all through a democratic process,“ he said, hoping that GST process will be completed before the session concludes next month...

As the Budget session of Parliament resumed on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hoped there will be a breakthrough on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill and that issues will be discussed in a democratic manner. “We hope that there will be a breakthrough on the GST because all states have positively cooperated. All political parties have also extended cooperation in a positive way,“ he told reporters outside Parliament. The second leg of the Budget session resumed on Thursday after about a month-long recess. “We are meeting after a break and the budget proposals will be discussed in details,“ he sa id. Hoping for a healthy debate in the House, the Prime Minister said, “I believe that the level of discussion will go to a higher level. Attention will be drawn towards the issues related to the poor people.“ “We are moving ahead with the consent of all through a democratic process,“ he said, hoping that GST process will be completed before the session concludes next month...

Non Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs) cannot lend more than Rs. 25,000 in cash against gold, RBI said. The earlier provision for NBFC was that high value loans against gold of Rs.1 lakh and above must only be disbursed by cheque. RBI reduced the amount to Rs.25,000 from the earlier Rs. 1lakh in line with the provisions of the I-T Act.“...the relevant threshold under the Income Tax Act, 1961is Rupees Twenty thousand,“ the central bank said, while amending the provisions for disbursal of loan amount in cash by NBFCs.This assumes significance in the backdrop of government's focus on less cash economy. The Economic Times New Delhi,10th July 2017

Tweaked definition of `agriculturalist' to enable select farm goods to be brought under tax net India has incorporated a new definition of `agriculturalist' in the goods and services tax law to enable select farm items to be brought under the tax net nationwide. While farmers won't have to register to pay the tax, registered buyers may need to collect the levy on a `reverse charge' basis, similar to the purchase tax principle adopted in Punjab and Haryana. Most farm produce will likely be exempted from the new tax and some cash crops are expected to at tract the threshold rate. As per the latest definition, an agriculturalist is a person or a Hindu undivided family undertaking cultivation of land by own labour or labour of the family or by servants paid wages in cash or kind or by hired labour under personal supervision or supervision by any family member. The draft central and integrated GST laws, which were approved by the GST Council, have incorporated the new de...

The government has asked all banks to provide mobile banking facility to all customers  by March31 in a bid to push digital transactions.”What we have asked the banksto do is to enable all customerswhohave mobilesformobilebanking... Weareaskingbankstoruna nationwidecampaignupto March31toensurethatevery customerwhohasamobile phoneisenabledformobile banking,” ElectronicsandIT SecretaryArunaSundararajan toldreporters. Business Standard New Delhi,02th March 2017

Entitlement at minimum `300 per day in C-category towns compared to Rs 160 now The labour ministry has nearly doubled the minimum wage for agricultural labourers including those hired on contract, barely six months after a significant increase in minimum wages for non-agricultural labourers. The Centre had on August 1 last year raised minimum wages for non-agricultural workers 42%. According to a labour ministry notification, an unskilled agricultural labourer will be entitled to a minimum wage of `300 per day in C-category towns compared to `160 now while those in B and A category towns will get ` 303 and `333 respectively. Similarly, semi-skilled workers will be entitled to a daily minimum wage of `364, `335 and `307 in A, B and C-category towns while skilled workers will be paid `395, `364 and `334 under three catego ries respectively. Highly skilled workers will get `438, `407 and `364 in A, B and C-category towns. Wages prescribed by the state government will prevail over ...

The Government circulated draft of the GST Model Law requesting for suggestions from the industry . The industry and experts have been poring over the draft. The article seeks to highlight the need to reconsider one of the provisions related to input tax credits. The proposed GST Legislation appears to deny tax credit in relation to input services for which payments are made after three months of the date of the invoice of the supplier. In fact the proposal mandates payment of interest inaddition to the denial of credit. Also, under the current legislation,customer can re-claim the credit reversed earlier on making payment against the invoice. However, a similar provision is missing under GST and consequently may result in permanent loss ofinput credit of tax paid earlier. It appears that this proposal was inserted to mitigate benami transactions. This anxiety is clearly misplaced for several reasons: A) The compliance prescribed un der the GST regime requires every person making a su...

The government´s efforts to disclose unaccounted deposited in banks ban have received response. At the end of February, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), also known as Income Declaration Scheme II, saw declarations crore, of which the Mumbai accounted for Rs.500 crore. Offeringafinal option of black money, the had on December 17 provided time until March 31 to come clean on deposits of banned currency notes in banks. For those holding unaccounted cash, the PMGKY proposed to tax 50 per cent of the declared amount and park 25 per cent in an interestfree deposit for The informal tax collection target for the scheme was over Rs.75,000 crore, double that of the Income Disclosure Scheme I. To collect that amount, the disclosure would have to be to the tune of Rs.1.5 lakh crore. The scheme is part of the Taxation Amendment) Act, by the Lok Sabha in December 2016. The tepid collection has prompted the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to conductavideo conference wi...