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GSTN Dials Taxpayers for Feedback on Filing To make the biggest technology backbone for tax filing more convenient, GST Network (GSTN) has started conducting surveys by calling up taxpayers enquiring about their experience on the portal. GSTN chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey said about 500 calls a day are made from a full-fledged call centre seeking feedback from businesses which have filed returns. “In the GST system, we constantly keep on collecting feedback from the public. We also do survey every day and proactively call business which have filed returns. We ask for their experience and where they had difficulty,“ Pandey told PTI. GSTN in June opened a call centre and publicised the helpline number for taxpayers with enrolment related queries. Some staffers from this centre have been assigned to get feedback of taxpayers who are filing returns and paying taxes on the portal. The Economic Times, New Delhi, 30th October 2017

Govt May Miss Revenue Collection Target CBEC Chief The indirect revenue collection by the government may fall short of the target this fiscal due to disruption caused by the GST rollout, a top official said on Sunday. For the year ending March 2018, the government had budgeted `9.68 trillion collection from customs and GST. However, the official of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) made it clear that there is no plan to revise the revenue collection target for the year. “The revenue collection target from customs and GST, which put together is `9.68 trillion for the current fiscal, seems difficult for the department (to achieve) at the moment, keeping in view the recent GST rollout,“ Vanaja N Sarna, chairperson, CBEC told PTI here. The Economic Times, New Delhi, 30th October 2017

GoM Suggests Cut in Tax Under Composition Scheme The Group of Ministers set up to make GST composition scheme more attractive on Sunday suggested lowering tax rates for manufacturers and restaurants under the plan to 1%. At present, while manufacturers pay GST at 2%, the rate for restaurants is 5%. Traders currently pay 1%. The GoM headed by Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has also suggested doing away with the tax rate distinction between AC and non-AC restaurants, those which are not covered under composition scheme, and tax them at 12%. It also suggested that hotels which has room tariff of more than `7,500 should attract 18% tax rate. Composition scheme is open for manufacturers, restaurants and traders whose turnover does not exceed Rs 1 crore. The Economic Times, New Delhi, 30th October 2017

DISQUALIFICATION OF OVER 300000 DIRECTORS  MCA Calls Meet to Examine Grey Areas in Cos Act Ministry officials to also frame govt response as several debarred directors have moved court After several directors went to courts against their debarment by the government, the ministry of corporate affairs has called an urgent meeting to discuss if there are “grey areas“ in the Companies Act that need to be addressed. A meeting of senior officials has been called on Monday to not just frame government response to these litigations but also to address any such grey area.The ministry in September cancelled registration of over 200,000 defaulting companies and, by extension, it had also debarred over 300,000 directors of companies.The amended Companies Act that came into effect in 2014 has provision for deregistering companies that fail to file returns. Moreover, Section 164 of the Act provides that any person who is or has been a director in a company which has not filed financial s...

India cautions against linking safeguard provisions to food security solutions Developing countries led by India and others want world trade rules to ensure that they will not be challenged legally if they breach a country’s agreed limits for trade-distorting domestic support India has cautioned against what it says are un-implementable transparency and safeguard provisions that are being sought to be linked by some countries to an agreement on a permanent solution for public stockholding programs for food security (PSH)—a core Indian demand —at an upcoming meeting of trade ministers in Buenos Aires. Developing countries led by India and others want world trade rules to ensure that they will not be challenged legally if they breach a country’s agreed limits for trade-distorting domestic support, such as minimum support prices for crops. The matter tops the agenda of trade ministers who are set to gather in Buenos Aires for the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) 11th ministerial mee...

Govt, RBI drawing up list of new banking reforms The finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are drawing up a list of reform measures to accompany the recent Rs 2.11-lakh- crore bank recapitalisation plan.These are being prepared in consultation with banks and might be classified into short-, medium- and longterm measures. Officials are tight-lipped about what these reforms might entail as preparations are still on. However, there are indications that some of the measures announced in Indradhanush — a seven-point plan to revamp state-owned banks but not completed — might be taken up again.“If there are some areas which have already been identified and on which action has not been taken, these will be included in the new effort,” outgoing Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa told Business Standard “It has been made amply clear that injection of capital, by itself, is not enough. It has to be accompanied by several other measures, internal and external, to the banks. I thi...

NPCI, NSDL in fray to develop e-wallet for exporters The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) are in the fray for operating the proposed ewallet system for exporters under the goods and services tax (GST) regime.The government is yet to decide on the agency that will develop the notional credit system to help exporters with working capital flow.GST Network (GSTN), the information technology backbone of GST, is also being considered for this. In the government´s push foracashless economy, NPCI developed the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app for making payments, available for customers of 55 banks across the country.NSDL, the country´s first and largest depository, handles most of securities held and settled in dematerialised form. It is also a GST Suvidha Provider, which facilitates filing of returns.The directorate general of foreign trade (DGFT) is working out the amount of credit an exporter will initially need.E-wall...

GST has not helped garment exports  Traders Garment exporters have told Parliament´s standing committee on commerce that they are yet to see any benefit from the goods and services tax (GST), with no decrease in input costs.A delegation of the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) also said shipments might dip in the globally competitive market.Bangladesh and Vietnam, for instance, have cost advantages on account of preferential trade agreements with major export markets and buyers are moving to these destinations for sourcing. Asaresult, they have warned, they might be forced to shed jobs.GST´s compliance requirements, they´ve complained, has strained their time and cost resources.“The overall effect on apparel exporters, especially small and medium ones (MSMEs), is burdensome and stressful due to substantial increase of working capital and higher transaction cost. MSMEs have to recruit the services of chartered accountants to manage GST payments and refunds,” said Ashok Raj...

Lenders prefer sectoral guidelines for choosing buyers in insolvency sales  Banks that are part of the consortium of lenders for companies referred to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) have come toaconsensus that there should be sectoral guidelines for selection of bidders among those who show an interest in acquiring any of the stressed assets put up for sale. Bankers, who held meetings on this issueafew days ago, looked at three alternative evaluation matrices —whether the evaluation criteria should be different from company to company; whether these should be common across all companies, irrespective of the industry; or the third option of their being pegged to a particular sector. So, for instance, the criteria for choosing bidders for all steel companies will be the same, but these will differ from the criteria for automobile component companies. BIDDER SELECTION Banks evaluating three models for selecting bidders 1.It should vary from company to company ...

SC to hear Bengal govt’s plea on Aadhaar on Oct 30 The Mamata Banerjee- led West Bengal government has challenged the Centre’s move to make Aadhaar mandatory for availing the benefits of various social welfare schemes in the SC, which has listed it for hearing on Monday. The plea is listed for hearing before a bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan. Senior advocate and member of parliament Kalyan Banerjee said the petition would come up for hearing before the bench on October 30. He said the West Bengal government has challenged the provision which says that without Aadhaar, the benefits of social welfare schemes would not be extended. The Mint, New Delhi, 28 th October 2017 

J&K to refund GST to protect tax relief given to factories Jammu and Kashmir govt clears plan to reimburse entire state GST and 42% of central GST to manufacturers who enjoyed excise duty relief in the earlier indirect regime  The Jammu and Kashmir government has cleared a plan to reimburse the entire state goods and services tax (SGST) and 42% of central GST (CGST) to manufacturers who had enjoyed excise duty relief in the earlier indirect regime. Before the introduction of GST from 1 July, manufacturing units in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and North Eastern states enjoyed 10-year excise duty relief either by way of upfront exemption or by way of a refund as the Central government wanted to encourage industrialisation of these states. After GST’s roll-out, the excise duty was replaced by GST, which has two equal components of CGST and SGST. The central government on 16 August decided to reimburse 58% of the CGST, which it collects from these units as t...