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Tax officials and industry experts will discuss new tax accounting standards for infrastructure companies in July, a person aware of the matter said. The new standards are expected to reduce the discretion these companies use in deciding how and when they recognize revenue from their projects. Officials representing the income-tax department, accounting body the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and outside experts will discuss the norms and subsequently seek comments from public, the person mentioned above said on condition of anonymity. The proposed Income Computation and Disclosure Standards (ICDS) for ‘build, operate and transfer’ (BOT) projects will force many companies to recognize revenue earlier and pay tax earlier as well. Given the rebound in highway development and expected investments in the infrastructure sector, this could result in an immediate boost to tax receipts. However, ICDS will only curtail the flexibility of developers to defer taxes, and no...

The Federation of All India Farmer Associations (FAIFA) on Monday asked the government to haveataxation policy that disincentivises cigarette smuggling in India, ahead of a crucial meeting of the goods and services (GST) Council later this week. The FAIFA,a non-profit organisation representing farmers across states such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Gujarat, said cigarette smuggling has hit tobacco farmers supplying to legitimate manufacturers in India.It urged Finance Minister Arun Jaitley “to protect the interests of Indian FCV (FlueCured Virginia) tobacco farmers through balanced and uniform taxation under GST”. “We appeal to the government to haveataxation policy that disincentivises cigarette smuggling in India,” FAIFA General Secretary Murali Babu said in a statement. He further said GST is an opportunity for the government to ensure illicit trade is eradicated from the country by removing distortions and address tobacco taxation in India.It will bring back lo...

The government has asked all companies to disclose shares and bond transactions involving Rs 10 lakh or more in a financial year to Income Tax department by May 31. Besides, a listed company purchasing its own securities for a specified amount from investors will have to furnish the information to the tax department, Corporate Affairs Ministry said in a notice. A company issuing shares, bonds or debentures aggregating to Rs 10 lakh or more in a financial year to any person will have to make the disclosure online regarding such transactions to the Income-Tax department on or before May 31, 2017. "Buy back of shares from any person (other than shares bought in the open market) for an amount or value aggregating to Rs 10 lakh or more in a financial year," will also come under this disclosure. Further, the government is in the process of cancelling the registration of more than two lakh companies that have not been carrying out business for a considerable period of time, amid...

Market regulator sends fresh list of 11,000 persons to tax authorities The fear of abolition of the longterm capital gains (LTCG) tax benefit is back on Dalal Street as another 11,000 cases of penny stock trading abuse have come to light. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) sentafresh list last week of entities that had allegedly misused capital gains provisions to evade Rs 34,000 crore in taxes to the income tax (IT) department. Although the regulator has stepped up vigilance, instances of such abuse are increasing.The government has hinted atapossible revocation of the capital gains benefit for stocks held for more than one year. Sebi shared the data with the tax authorities after investigations revealed 11,000 entities had bought shares of more than Rs 5 lakh each in the last three years in listed companies that might not have any business operation.Sebi has identified these entities using data analytics and trading and surveillance data over the past three years...

No major incident yet in the country, but central bank, stock exchanges, other vital institutions told to bolster defences; companies rush to protect computer systems.The government’s cybersecurity arm has asked the central bank, stock exchanges, the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI) and other vital institutions to safeguard their systems against the latest cyberattack that has infected thousands of systems globally and may escalate further. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the central agency coordinating efforts on cyber security issues, has issued a “critical alert” and has advised the installation of relevant “patches” to protect against any data breaches. The virus dubbed Wanna Cry, a so-called ransomware, has locked up more than 100,000 computers and sent cybersecurity experts scrambling on Sunday to patch computers and restore infected ones. Experts fear that the ransomware worm that stopped car factories, hospitals, shops and schools in more than ...

The income tax depart ment has launched an online facility to correct errors in names and other details in permanent account number (PAN) and Aadhaar. Alongside the facility to link biometric identifier Aadhaar with PAN, the department has also put two separate hyperlinks on its e-filing website -one to update changes in existing PAN data or for application of new PAN by an Indian or a foreign citizen. The second hyperlink is for individuals who want to update Aadhaar details by logging into 'Aadhaar Self Service Update Portal' using the unique ID number. The Economic Times New Delhi, 15th May 2017

As they battle the NPA menace, banks are set to see “huge ramifications“ next fiscal with the implementation of new accounting norms that will require the lenders to make higher provisioning for loans. The Indian Accounting Standard 109, set to be effective from April 1, 2018, is likely to have an impact on the “banking numbers“, ICAI president Nilesh Shivji Vikamsey said. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is the apex body of chartered accountants in the country. The Economic Times New Delhi, 15th May 2017

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...