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I-T Dept to Soon Issue Notices to Suspicious Cash Depositors The Income Tax Department will soon issue notices to those who have deposited “suspicious” amounts of money in banks post-demonetisation and have not responded to taxman's preliminary communication, CBDT said on Tuesday. Sushil Chandra, chairman, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), said despite closing of I-T returns filing time period, a number of entities and individuals failed to file their tax returns, as required under the ‘Operation Clean Money’ (OCM) initiated by the government to check black money post demonetisation. “The government has already taken all measures under the Operation Clean Money. We have given enough time to people to file their returns and come out clean,” he said. “But we have found that even after the last date of returns, a large number of persons have not filed the same,” Chandra said. LENS ON PROFILES OF PROPERTIES The Income Tax Department is matching the “tax profiles” of all...

IBC Tweak may Bar Defaulters from Bidding Promoters can buy back stressed assets at a discount now, leaving room open for furore The government is considering amending its insolvency law to prevent existing promoters of bankrupt companies from reacquiring them during the resolution process at a steep discount.The current Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, passed last year, does not prevent promoters from bidding for these stressed assets during the resolution process. Some owners are reported to be getting ready to stake a claim for these assets when they are put up for sale by the creditors. But promoters wresting back control of entities after banks take a big haircut would be politically very controversial and an influential section in the government is keen to prevent this from happening. “There is some discomfort with it (the possibility of promoters buying back assets at a discount). It is being looked at,” a top government official told ET.The changes may be introduced as e...

Jaitley rules out single GST rate Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday ruled outasingle rate for the goods and services tax (GST), adding any further rationalisation of tariffs would be contingent on revenues.“Those who are speaking ofasingle rate for the GST have no understanding of the tariff structure. Food items have to be taxed at nil. ´Commonman items´ have to be taxed at the lowest rate of 5 per cent,” he said.Congress VicePresident Rahul Gandhi had demanded a GST rate of up to 18 per against the current slabs of 12, 18, and 28 per cent. “Luxury goods, sin products, and products hazardous to environment and health can´t taxed at the same rate as man products´. Wheat, sugar can´t be taxed at the rate Mercedes car orayacht or Jaitley said.He, however, held out hope for rationalising rates.four months, we have the 28 per cent slab.Such rationalisation (in future) depends on revenue buoyancy,” Jaitley said.Last Friday, the GST Council lowered the rates for almost 210 item...

Reach out to non-filers of GST returns: CBEC to field offices The tax department has directed its field offices to reach out to businesses that have not filed returns under the goods and services tax (GST), but were paying taxes in the erstwhile service tax/valueadded tax (VAT) regime.The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has shared the zonewise data of businesses under the GST with regional commissioners to handhold them in case they are facing difficulty while filing returns under the new indirect tax regime. The CBEC is the apex decisionmaking body for policies relating to indirect taxes.About 10 million businesses have registered themselves on the GST Network.Of this, 7.2 million have migrated from the erstwhile excise, service tax, and VAT regime.Under the GST, businesses with turnover of up to Rs 20 lakh are exempt. The Business Standard, New Delhi, 14th November 2017

Govt to launch Bharat 22 ETF today, seeks to raise Rs8,000 crore The Bharat 22 ETF will open for anchor investors on Tuesday and for non-anchor investors on 15 November and close on 17 November The government will launch the ‘Bharat 22’ exchange traded fund (ETF) managed by ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, on Tuesday, targeting an initial amount of about Rs8,000 crore. The new fund offer will be open for subscription till 17 November and a discount of 3% is being offered to all categories of investors. “While our initial issue size for Bharat 22 ETF is Rs8,000 crore, we can also consider going beyond looking at the response in the market,” said Anuradha Thakur, joint secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) in the ministry of finance. The ETF is part of the government’s overall disinvestment programme, and mirrors the S&P BSE Bharat 22 Index, which comprises select companies from the CPSE (central public sector enterprises) universe, stakes hel...

Sebi withdraws circular on default disclosures by companies The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Monday said that it had withdrawn a circular requiring default disclosures by companies, acting on the advice of banks. The markets regulator said banks needed clarity on the types of defaults that would require disclosure, depending on the kind of loan availed of by companies. The circular issued by Sebi in August was withdrawn on 30 September, just a day before the notification was to come into force. SpiceJet Ltd’s fiscal-second quarter profit rose 79% as it filled more seats and improved passenger yield. Net profit rose to Rs105.3 crore in the quarter ended 30 September from Rs58.9 crore in the year earlier, the company said in a statement on Monday. This is SpiceJet’s highest profit reported in the second quarter since it started operations in 2005. Revenue rose 30% to Rs1,838.69 crore from Rs1,415.83 crore. Expenses increased about 28% to Rs1,734.1 crore Spic...

Govt may amend law to let Sebi act against unlisted units Specific sections of the Companies Act may be tweaked to allow Sebi to enforce corporate governance norms on unlisted subsidiaries to protect investors’ interestThe government may soon vest the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) with powers to act against insider trading and forward dealing activities in unlisted units of a publicly traded entity. Specific sections of the Companies Act may be amended to allow Sebi to enforce corporate governance norms on unlisted subsidiaries so that investors’ interest is protected, said Injeti Srinivas, secretary of ministry of corporate affairs (MCA). “We have a meeting with Sebi in the next few days and we will work on this issue. Even if it involves unlisted companies, MCA is open to vacate the required areas in the Act for Sebi as long as it serves the common goal of improving corporate governance standards,” Srinivas said on the sidelines of a corporate governance summi...

Govt to start Rs 34,000 crore Bharat Net phase2 from today The government will start its second and final phase of Bharat Net project on Monday —with an outlay of around Rs 34,000 crore— to provide high speed broad band in all panchayats by March 2019, Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said on Sunday. Under the project, the government aims to connect 150,000 panchayats through 1 million km of additional optical fibre and give band width to telecom players at nearly 75 per cent cheaper price for broad band and WiFi services in rural areas. “We will tomorrow launch phase2 of BharatNet to connect 150,000 gram panchayats (GPs) with high speed broad band by March 2019. Phase1 of the project, under which 100,000 GPs were to be connected, will be completed by the end of this year.We expect telecom operators to provide at least 2 megabit per second speed to rural households,” Sundararajan said. Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha, Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Human Resource ...

Fear of revenue loss abates as GST collections gain momentum States are steadily improving GST collections aided by relaxations in deadline, waiver of late payment fee and steps to encourage compliance, shows GST Council data.The initial revenue shock following the rollout of the goods and services tax (GST) seems to have abated, with states steadily improving collections aided by relaxations in deadline, waiver of late payment fee and steps to encourage compliance, showed data from the GST Council. Average shortfall in GST revenue collected by states narrowed to 24% in September and further to 17.6% in October from a high of 28.4% in August, supporting the optimism of state finance ministers that revenues will stabilize further in coming months. Monthly GST receipts of states relate to sales in the previous month GST, aimed at creating a common nationwide market by scrapping a web of local taxes, has seen a series of tweaks since it was implemented on 1 July, with the most com...

Next Step in GST Recast: Lower End of Tax Slabs The next rejig of goods and services tax will likely focus on the lower end of the rate slabs, as the country seeks to further streamline the structure by converging multiple rates into two or three. It will happen after the regime settles down and there is more clarity on revenue following the recast last week. Simplification of laws, rules and procedures in line with industry’s feedback is also likely to top the GST Council’s agenda in the next few meetings. The rates on some items such as cement and paint, still left at the highest rate of 28%, could be brought down if tax revenue remains robust. A top official with a state government said the focus would now be to recast the lower 12% and 5% rate slabs.Other issues to be considered by the council are inclusion of real estate and petroleum products under GST.The government has set up a group with industry representation to review the tax regime, which has since its July 1 launc...

Post Tax Rate Cut FMCG Firms Set to Reduce Prices Prices of shampoos, chocolates, nutrition drinks and condensed milk are set to drop 5-15% after the GST Council eased them out of higher tax slabs. Companies such as Hindustan Unilever, Dabur, Amul, GlaxoSmithKline, Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Perfetti Van Melle said they have either decided to reduce prices or are planning to do so after the GST Council cut tax on several consumer goods to 18% from 28%. They, in fact, are also bound by the anti-profiteering clause under the GST law to pass on any benefit from lower tax incidence to consumers. “We will drop prices at least by 5% on our shampoo range,” Dabur chief executive Sunil Duggal said. The country’s largest dairy firm, Amul, said it would slash prices of condensed milk and chocolates by 5-10% with immediate effect, while GlaxoSmithKline Consumer said it would cut the price of popular chocolate drink Horlicks in line with the new rate. Hindustan Unilever said it was ca...