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Cos eyeing benefits under Startup India will have to declare job creation estimates Companies eyeing benefits under the Startup India programme will soon have to declare upfront how many jobs they will create in order to qualify as the government moves to make employment generation the guiding principle for all its major programmes. “We will soon notify the new definition for startups, which goes beyond innovation,“ a senior government official said. Innovation is currently the main criterion for startups to qualify for benefits such as tax holidays and fast-track patent filing under Startup India. To qualify as a startup under the new definition, an entity would have to declare its job creation target and meet certain financial standards besides having a certain level of innovation in its product or service. “We will do our own scrutiny at the time of examination of applications for giving the tax benefits,“ the official said. When PM Narendra Modi launched the Startup India ini t...

The government´s move to link Permanent Account Number (PAN) with Aadhaar has got support from a large number of people, but a vast majority are concerned about their personal details getting leaked and being misused, two separate surveys show. The first survey, conducted by online citizen engagement platform Local Circles, found that close to twothirds of respondents were concerned about their Aadhaar details getting leaked during the prevailing processes of getting the ID card made and through access protocols for vendors like banks and telecom operators. About one fourth of respondents said they were not concerned, showing their satisfaction with the existing security measures, while the remaining did not express any opinion.According to Local Circles,a total of 10,729 citizens voted on this poll. In the second poll, which had 9,847 respondents, 70 per cent backed the government´s move to link Aadhaar with PAN in its bid to increase the compliance level.Another 27 per cent oppos...

The international taxation arm of the income tax (I-T) department has sought details of end-beneficiary subscribers of participatory notes (P-notes) from some leading offshore derivative instrument (ODI) issuers in the country. According to a senior official, the I-T department suspects that these instruments are being used to legalise unaccounted money. The issue came up when taxmen found certain discrepancies in the disclosures made by ODI issuers. Nearly half a dozen P-note issuers could come under scrutiny. “Details mentioned in the Know Your Customer (KYC) disclosures were not tallying with the tax authority’s database. We need more information from the issuers to ascertain if any law has been violated. We will get the data in the next few weeks,” the official said. The move comes in the wake of amendments in tax treaties with Mauritius and Singapore. Till now, all the investments coming from these countries were exempt from short-term capital gains (STCG) tax. However, the ST...

Fitment of contentious goods to be finalised this week Ahead of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting in Srinagar from Thursday, the Centre and states seem to have arrived at a consensus on the rates for at least 6,000 items. The fitment of contentious items such as soaps, cosmetics, coconut oil and cars would be finalised in a meeting of the state and central officials on Monday and Wednesday. “The committee has looked into each and every product and their excise and VAT (value-added tax) rates across the country. Rates have been finalised for 70-75 per cent of the total items. The remaining items are still under discussion and will likely be finalised before the GST Council meeting, if the issues pertaining to categorisation are ironed out,” said a government official. The rates have been decided on the basis of the current effective tax rate of products based on the Harmonised System of Nomenclature or HSN code. The report of the sub-committee on rates will be present...

NEW DELHI: An inter-ministerial panel being constituted to suggest a policy prescription for the failing financial health of the telecom sector will consult banks and operators before finalising its views in three months. The committee is expected to have representation from the Departments of Economic Affairs, Revenue and Financial Services, besides the Telecom Department, an official familiar with the matter told PTI. The panel is expected to finalise its recommendations in the next three months.

NEW DELHI: India has raised serious concerns over bringing issues related to investment facilitation within the ambit of WTO saying these are bilateral matters and can not be decided at multi-lateral forums. The issue was listed on the agenda of a meeting of the General Council, the highest decision making body of the World Trade Organization (WTO), on May 10 in Geneva. "India strongly objected to the inclusion of investment and investment facilitation on the agenda list. Investment facilitation does not come in the scope of the WTO. It is a forum for trade facilitation and trade related aspects of investments only," a senior official said.

Deposit gush:-CA Institute Bats for Special Audit

To seek speedy & immediate talks on public food stock holding issue India is preparing to veto the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) trade facilitation agreement, in a stubborn effort to seek a negotiating space for public  stockholding in food grain and food subsidies. If it does, it will be the only country in the entire WTO membership to stop the deal from getting implemented. “The way things are moving, there is no way we can agree to the trade facilitation agreement being pushed by the developed nations at WTO within the prescribed  deadline. Food security has always been India’s main concern and this time we are not going to concede,” a topranking official involved in the negotiations, who did not wish to be named, told Business Standard. The issue of public stockholding and food security has domestic compulsions here as the issue is largely political. And, for a new government that came to power after winning a landslide victory, the issue of livelihood of its po...

The rupee has gained more than 4.5% in the last three months on the back of dollar inflows into domestic equity and debt markets. While a strong rupee should sit well with a net importer like India, a fast appreciation of the exchange rate is not desired.One of the measures of overvaluation of the rupee is the real effective exchange rate (REER) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). There are two REERs that RBI details in its data releases.One is derived from a basket of six currencies, while the other is from a basket of 36 currencies belonging to trading partner.Both REERs show that the rupee is overvalued by a huge margin. The six currencies-based REER puts the rupee's pvervaluation at 8% while the 36-currency one puts it at a massive 21% as of April.RBI too has raised its interventions in the exchange rate market as evident from its latest bulletin. Mint New Delhi, 11th May 2017.

Lacking majority in RS, the Centre relies on states to bring in changes in labour laws The onus of driving big-bang labour reforms, which could bring India's hiring norms in kilter with flexible global practices, rests with the states now as the Centre lacks the required Upper House majority to push such a bill, and isn't keen on an encore of the experience on the land acquisition law. Furthermore, with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in power in a number of big states, the New Delhi believes it will be easier to drive legislative changes in labour laws at the state level to enhance the ease of doing business. A senior government official told ET that the Centre is not immediately keen on bringing labour law amendments to Parliament. “Some work has been done on codifying labour laws and reducing 44 legislations into four codes. However, in terms of progress on legislative action, it is still an issue whether it will pass the muster in Rajya Sabha, because NDA by itse...

PMO asked income-tax department to submit report on action taken against identified benami owners The income-tax (I-T) department has begun a multi-city crack down against owners of benami assets who parked their ill-gotten wealth in the name of other individuals. According to sources, the tax department has identified over 300 cases which could face action under the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act. The Act empowers the taxman to confiscate and prosecute both the depositor and the person whose illegal money was parked in bank accounts. The move came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a recent meeting directed the tax department to take stringent action against benami owners who were identified during Operation Clean Money. Operation Clean Money is the government’s ongoing exercise, aimed to detect black money generation in the system, after demonetisation. Acting on the directive, the Central Board of Direct Taxes has constituted 30 special units in 16 jurisdictions. The s...