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Inform the insurer about the damage within two to three days Atarecent seminar of insurance brokers and surveyors, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) ChairmanTSVijayan admitted that delays with regard to settlement of commercial claims like motor, fire, marine and others continued to be an issue. Lack of access to surveyors´ reports is another hurdle, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Besides, while retail (individual) policy holders can approach the Insurance Ombudsman withagrievance, in the case of commercial claims there is no such recourse. According to Irdai guidelines, any nonmotor claim where the estimated amount is more than Rs.50,000 would require the appointment of an independent surveyor. Are surveyors truly independent? “These surveyors, though appointed by the insurance company, are independent intermediaries, as they are licensed and regulated by Irdai. They are accountable for the loss they assess to Irdai and n...

Before its pre- inital public offering the sharehoders of BSE fear higher taxes on bonus shares they got in 2007.The union buget had said the shares acquired after 2007 by non payement of secuirties transsaction tax(STT) will attract lomg term cappital gains tax. There is no instance of STT on shares obtained by way of bouns issue.Although the government has hinted that bouns and right issues would be exempt from the new provision,BSE shareholders have knoked on the door of the finance ministry and the sebi want clarity on the issue. Business Standard New Delhi,20th March 2017 

Barely four per cent of direct tax litigation cases pending with the income tax department came under the Dispute Resolution Scheme (DRS) of 2016, with total taxes to the tune of Rs1,250 crore. Extension of the scheme by a month till January 31 failed to elicit much response, resulting in 10,500 applications under the scheme making up for only two per cent of the disputed amount at the level of the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals). Among the total applications, the government has received Rs250 crore so far from the orders passed in 4,100 cases. The applicants will get about two months to pay the tax amount, interest and penalty from the date of orders.  The response suggests only small-value cases came under the scheme, with an average tax incidence of Rs11 lakh. “The scheme got a very poor response compared to what was expected. The scope of the scheme was very limited. Those hopeful of getting a favourable verdict at the appeals commissioner-level did not apply. But th...

The law commission is learn to have decided against recommending  income tax exemption on the money deposited in a single parent's account as maintance for a minor child in a divorce settlement case. In its report to be submitted to the government and the punjab and Haryana high court on Monday,the commission is disinclined to recommend relief for such parents.The issue was referred to it by the Punjab and Haryana High court. Business Standard New Delhi,20th March 2017

DIPP also wants definition of a startup to cover older biotech, medical devices companies The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion has moved a cabinet note that seeks to ease venture capital funding norms for startups and relax the definition of a startup to include older biotechnology and medical device companies. The DIPP has suggested these changes be incorporated under Startup India Action Plan, the Narendra Modi-led government's flagship initiative for nurturing innovation. A senior government official told ET that VC funds will be more willing to finance newer ventures if they are able to spread their risks. The DIPP has proposed that VC firms where government holds a stake be allowed to invest a part of their corpus in firms other than startups, the official said. “This has been one of the reasons why VC funds have not reached out to startups as we expected. They have to be allowed to hedge their risks,“ the official said. Last year, the government had approved ...

The Cabinet may on Monday take up for approval the supporting GST legislations, which will then be introduced in Parliament as the government sprints to meet the July 1 target date for rollout of the new indirect tax regime. A set of four supporting legislations -- the Compensation Law, the Central-GST or C-GST, Integrated-GST or I-GST and Union Territory-GST or UT-GST -- are likely to together go to the Cabinet for approval. Sources said the Cabinet meeting has been called for Monday morning and the agenda list may not be very long. The GST Council, in its previous two meetings, had given approval to the four legislations as also the State-GST (S-GST) bill. While the S-GST has to be passed by each of the state legislative assemblies, the other four laws have to be approved by Parliament. Once approved, levy of Goods and Services Tax (GST) will get legal backing. The government is hoping the C-GST, I-GST, UT-GST and the GST Compensation laws will be approved in the current sessio...

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has sent a list of market scenarios that can be kept out of the Union Budget’s proposal of levying capital gains tax on transactions of shares that were acquired by not paying the securities transaction tax (STT). According to sources, the market regulator has recommended to the finance ministry that transfer of shares on account of inheritance, restructuring within companies and employee stock options (Esops) can be part of the exempt list. Some of the transactions involving foreign funds made without any consideration can also be included in the list, Sebi has said. Sebi has not raised any reservations over providing relief to transactions such as acquiring shares through initial public offerings (IPOs) or through a bonus or rights issue, where typically the STT is not paid. These types of transactions were suggested in the Finance Bill by the government. The Centre is expected to finalise an exhaustive list of exemptions in t...

Kingfisher Airlines Ltd is back in the news. According to reports, lenders to Kingfisher Airlines are likely to issue a wilful defaulter notice to the beleaguered airline after a scheduled meeting of the lenders’ consortium, over the next one week. If the airline is indeed declared a wilful defaulter, it would lose access to any further bank funding as per existing norms. Who is a wilful defaulter? When you take a loan from a bank or a non-banking finance company, you have an obligation to repay the loan. Due to various reasons, many borrowers default on their loan repayment. Individuals, or companies, who fail to repay the loan are called wilful defaulters under the following circumstances. If you are financially capable of repaying the loan and yet fail to repay; if you use the loan amount for other purposes than what you had availed it for; if you use the money for illegal purposes; if you sell the property that you have kept as security with the lender for availing the loan. ...

The stocks of cigarette makers rallied on Friday as concerns on a higher ‘sin tax’ abated with the government keeping the rates on cigarettes unchanged in the goods and services tax (GST) regime. The Centre has capped the tax rate on cigarettes at 290 per cent over the next five years on expectations that the initial tax rate on this industry will have a neutral impact. ITC Ltd, which has a 79 per cent market share, rose by over 7.5 per cent to touch Rs288.90 on the BSE in intra-day trade, close to its lifetime high of Rs292. The scrip closed at Rs281.20, registering 4.85 per cent growth. Shares of VST Industries also shot up by 11 per cent in intra-day trade to touch Rs2,929.85 and finally ended at Rs2,839.45, registering an upswing of 7.55 per cent. Shares of Godfrey Phillips also peaked at Rs1,283.75 in the intra-day trade, closing at Rs1,298.50, an increase of 1.04 per cent. Sector analysts attributed the rise in stocks to the markets’ perception that the proposed tax rat...

Government's intention is to increase the revenue base but raising the taxation level could at times be a "retrograde" method, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Friday. Jaitley, who also holds the additional charge of Defence Ministry, told the Lok Sabha that the intention of the government was to expand the revenue base. "The revenue mobilisation of the states must increase, that is the primary resource that the government gets, and this is not necessarily to be done by raising the level of taxation. That could at times be a retrograde method of trying to raise the revenue," he said. Jaitley made the remarks while making an intervention during a debate on the demands for grants for the Defence Ministry. "Therefore, whenever we take political positions on those issues, at the end of the day, we must realise that the size of the entire revenue cake has to increase. It is only then that the slice, which will be available for national security, w...

There will not be many changes in the goods and services tax (GST) rates compared to what’s prevailing in the current indirect taxation regime, according to officials. They also said the rates would not be inflationary because foodgrains are likely to be exempted.  The next big thing in the GST regime will be rules and the item-wise rate structure. “We don’t want to make many changes in rates for goods under the new GST rate structure,” an official said. Another official said there would be a smooth landing for industry with respect to the rates. He said the fitment of items in the GST rates would be done to ensure that the consumer price index (CPI) did not spike. “We will do calculations to see to it that rates don’t lead to consumer price inflation,” he said. The GST Council, an official said, would decide if cesses over the peak rate of 28 per cent should continue after five years. All other cesses will be subsumed in the GST.  The official said the Centre would lose s...