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Goods of common use may be spared in the final list being prepared by Centre and states The Centre and states are expected to keep the exemption list short -about 100 -under the proposed goods and services tax regime, even as the North Block is flooded with requests from industry associations to keep their products out of tax net or in the lowest slab. The Centre currently exempts 299 items while states keep 99 out of the tax net. “Some items will remain exempted,“ said a top government official. Goods of common use and consumed largely by the masses will be spared in the final list.Salt, primary produce, fruits and vegetables, flour, salt, milk, eggs, tea, coffee and prasad sold at temples could figure on the exemption list. “It's near finalisation...Ultimately, it will be a political call,“ said a government official. Services above certain threshold, exempted under differential taxation, may be brought into the tax net to broaden the base. For instance, budget hotels with ta...

The Centre has given one final opportunity to all non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which had applied for renewal of their registration under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (FCRA) but had not uploaded their annual returns from financial year 2010-11 to 2014-15, to do so. “All such NGOs can upload their missing Annual Returns along with the requisite documents within a period of 30 days, starting from May 15, 2017 to June 14, 2017. Further no compounding fee will be imposed on them for late filing of Annual Returns during this period,” the home ministry said in a statement. The ministry also added that the registration under FCRA would not be renewed unless the annual returns were uploaded by the NGOs. Mint New Delhi, 17th May 2017

May put threshold for shareholders owning up to 2% in stock exchanges The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is likely to remove the ‘fit and proper’ requirement for shareholders owning up to two per cent in stock exchanges,said a source privy to the development. The current rules don’t allow an entity to directly or indirectly own shares in an exchange, unless declared ‘fit and proper’. Sebi has listed different scenarios for monitoring and complying with the norm, based on shareholding thresholds of two per cent, five per cent and 15 per cent. Now, if an entity wanted to acquire shares of up to two per cent, the stock exchange had to grant approval; the exchange was also required to monitor their fit criteria based on declarations made by the acquirer. The market regulator would soon bring an amendment in the stock exchanges and clearing corporations rules, currently under review for exchanges and other market infrastructure institutions. In a representation to the Seb...

Retirement fund manager EPFO has reduced the stipulated period for settlement of various claims such PF withdrawal, pension and insurance to 10 days from 20 at present. In July 2015, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) had reduced the timeline for settling various claims to 20 day to improve the service delivery for its over four crore subscribers. The body has launched the online claim settlement facility on May 1, 2017. It has planned to eventually settle claims of all Aadhaar and bank account seeded EPF accounts within three hours of receipt of an application. "The timeline in case of claim settlements is 10 days and 15 days in case of grievance redressal management," an EPFO statement said. These are new provisions in the EPFO's Citizens' Charter 2017 launched in Bangalore on Tuesday by Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya. It said the Charter is an attempt to bring transparency and accountability on the part of EPFO and make service delivery s...

The government´s to demonetise Rs 500  Rs 1,000 notes has the authorities bring 9.1 people under the tax money has lost its anonymity, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Tuesday.This is roughly one fourth of 37 million individuals who filed tax returns in 2015-16. Launching a new website on ´Operation Clean Money´,a programme to bring illegal wealth on the books, Jaitley said demonetisation givenapush towards and led to an increase in the number of assessees and tax revenues.November 8 announcement had also instilled fear people about dealing he said. “One message has gone out clearly as per the steps taken by the CBDT post demonetisation —it is no longer safe to deal with excessive cash and tax evaded money ... It is absolutely clear that those who have been indulging in all these are no longer safe,” Jaitley said. Post demonetisation, there had been a hike in collection of personal income tax, the finance minister said, adding that the new portal would help honest tax p...

The Centre and states to charge only 0.5% each; e-commerce marketplaces to collect levy The Centre and states are likely to each impose a 0.5 per cent tax collected at source on sellers of products on ecommerce websites such as Flipkart and Amazon under the goods and services tax (GST) regime. This proposal would be taken up at the two-day meeting of the GST Council, starting Thursday in Srinagar. The tax will be collected by the e-commerce market places: They will deduct 1 per cent while paying the sellers. E-commerce players had earlier opposed a provision in the GST law to impose a 2 per cent tax — 1 per cent by the Centre and states each — deducted at source. The new indirect tax regime is expected to be rolled out on July 1. “The tax collected at source will only help trace who is doing the transaction through an e-commerce portal. It is a measure to make such portals accountable,” said a senior government official, adding the tax could also be zero but states were not in favo...

If you splurged on something really expensive or made an enormous investment recently, rest assured your accounts won’t be opened up for scrutiny by the income tax department as long as these can be squared with your declared income. “Scrutiny will be based on specific information,” a senior income tax official told ET. In other words, big transactions will no longer automatically qualify a person for scrutiny. The income tax department will only start asking questions if it has  clear information that calls for an investigation, sparing honest taxpayers. This was the outcome of a high-level meeting held by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) last week to review the conditions for scrutiny. Such cases are currently picked up through computer-based criteria related to transactions above a certain ceiling. This idea is to ensure that regular taxpayers such as salaried employees don’t face unnecessary hassle and to allow tax authorities to focus their energies on high-risk in...

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...