CA Online

No Monopoly Govt will Ensure Digital Inclusion The government will not allow any monopoly over the internet to exist in India even though it upholds freedom of speech, electronics and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.“India believes in freedom (of speech). But I can tell you that any kind of abuse of the platform for extraneous and collateral purposes will not be allowed,” the minister said in an interview to ET, addressing concerns over how social media may have been used to influence the US election results and how India plans to deal with similar situations. There are “laws in place” to deal with situations like that and the government is in favour of “digital inclusion” but not in favour of “digital monopoly”, Prasad said. “You may recall the whole concept of Free Basics by Facebook — you get through only when you go through my gateway — we had taken a very strong position on that,” said Prasad, who is also minister for law and justice. Two years ago, the telecom regula...

HC judges, experts brainstorm on GST litigations With the goods and services tax(GST) in place, 20 judges from 12 high courts brain stormed with experts and top government officials on identifying grey areas in the new regime that may throw up litigations in coming days. Top domain expert sand officials from the GST Intelligence and the Central Board of Excise and Customs briefed judges, according to documents available in the public domain. The deliberations took place at a recent national judicial conference for high court judges on the GST regime organised by the Bhopal based National Judicial Academy. Topics ranging from ´potential areas of conflict and litigation under GST´to ´comparative analysis of concepts: GST visavis Central Excise, Service Taxand VAT´, were discussed. The Business Standard,New Delhi, 20th November 2017

Act fast on GST rate cut or face action Hasmukh Adhia Companies, including FMCG firms, might be prosecuted if their retailers do not immediately cut the prices of products whose goods and services tax (GST) rates have been slashed.Union Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia says the retailers or the companies cannot continue with higher prices on grounds that the old stocks have not been exhausted. “We have made provisions for the companies to claim the difference from the government as input tax credit. But I am not willing to accept their argument to postpone passing on the benefits to consumers till they have disposed of their old stocks.” According to him, the new prices should be effective from November 15.  The GST Council in its last meeting this month cut the tax rate on 176 items from 28 per cent to 18 per cent and on two to 12 per cent. There was a huge demand to make these cuts. Speaking in a Doordarshan interview in which Business Standard was present, Adhia, who is...

GST rules changed on refund claims The Finance Minister has decided  thet applications/documents/forms pertaining to refund claims on account of certain Zero reated supplies shall be fileld and processed manually till further orders. Last Wednesday, notification  no 55/2017-central tax was issued, amending teh central goods and services tax (CGST)Rules and precribing new refund  application form  RFD-01A. Simultaneously, the Central Board of Excise and Customs(CBSE) presribed the procedure through Circular 17/17/17/2017-GST. For refund of Integrated GST (IGST) paid on export of goods,the present  procedure for disbursement through custom remians unchanged.For refund of IGST paid on export of services or supplies to Special Economic Zone (SEZ) developers or units, RFD-01A must be filed by the supplier on the common portal. Then, a print out of the form should be given to the jurisdictional tax officer, with the necessary documentary evidence. For refund o...

NSE s SME Platform to List 100th Co Today The number of listed firms on NSE's small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) platform would touch 100-mark on Monday and further traction is expected in the next six months with 50 more initial public offerings on this segment, the top official said. So far, 99 companies are listed on the NSE's Emerge platform with an aggregate market capitalisation of over Rs 7,600 crore. However, on the rival BSE's SME platform, more than 200 companies got listed in over five years of its existence. BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) had launched SME platforms in 2012, becoming the only two bourses to offer such a segment in the country. The Economic Times, New Delhi, 20th November 2017

Govt Seeks RS 13,000-cr Surplus from RBI The government has not asked the Reserve Bank to pay any special dividend and is only seeking Rs 13,000 crore of surplus lying with the central bank, Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg has said. In August, the RBI had paid a dividend of Rs 30,659 crore for the fiscal ended June 2017. It was less than half the Rs 65,876 crore it had paid in 2015-16 The government had budgeted for a Rs 58,000 crore dividend from the RBI in its Budget for this fiscal year. “There is no proposal at this stage to ask for any special dividend. What is being discussed is to only ask for what the RBI earned this year but did not distribute. That is about ?13,000 crore. That's what the government has suggested the Reserve Bank to transfer,” Garg said. RBI's profit was about  Rs 44,000 crore, of which  Rs 30,000 crore has been distributed and  Rs13,000 crore it retained towards risks and reserves. So the government has made a...

Govt to stick to fiscal road map: jaitley A day after dithering on the fiscal glide path, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, upbeat on the Moody´s upgrade, said the government would maintain fiscal discipline and adhere to the road map suggested by a government constituted panel.“We intend to maintain the fiscal glide path. We believe that the upgrade is a be lated recognition of all the positive steps that have been taken in the past few years that contributed to the strengthening of the Indian economy,” Jaitley told a press conference after Moody´s upgraded India´s ratings, giving credit to the Narendra Modi government´s reform initiatives. He added that the government´s track record had been one of the better records in India´s history as far as fiscal discipline was concerned.“And we intend to move on that track,” said Jaitley. However, at a Morgan Stanley event in Singapore on Thursday, he had said, “No pause, but challenges arising from structural reforms (which) could chan...

Moody's Raises Rating First Time 14 Years Moody´s Investors Service on Friday upgraded India´s sovereign bond rating byanotch for the first time in 14 years, showing confidence in the Narendra Modi government´s reform initiatives such as demonetisation, the goods and services tax (GST) and its efforts to resolve the bad debt asset crisis of banks.Moody´s raised the rating from the lowest investment grade of Baa3 to Baa2, and changed the outlook from positive to stable. “It is a be lated recognition of the positive steps taken in the past few years.Many who had doubts about India´s reform process would now seriously introspect on their position,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in response.Analysts said the upgrade would lead to higher capital inflows, strengthening the rupee, and ease India Inc´s access to overseas capital at lower rates. The markets cheered the move.The Sensex rose 235.98 points to close at 33,342.80, even after paring initial gains.The Nifty crossed th...

Rupee may still depreciate The ratings upgrade by Moody’s will bring a new class of investors in the country, so far restricted by their investment mandate of not investing in countries below a threshold.That should strengthen the rupee naturally, but it may not be desirable for the central bank. To maintain the country’s competitiveness, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) might still want to see the rupee a little weak vis-á-vis its export competitors, revealed a Business Standard poll of 10 senior treasury heads and economists.That usually means the central bank will have to intervene in the market to keep the rupee weaker than its actual strength. Foreign exchange reserves, which recently crossed Rs 400 billion but have come off since then a bit, should get a strong boost as a result of the intervention, they said.However, in the short term, the rupee will maintain a strong bias. Ultimately the rupee’s fate is still tied to what happens to the dollar globally. The dollar index,...

Sebi to investigate possible leak of company earnings Sebi chief Ajay Tyagi says the market regulator will investigate possible leaks of company earnings in social media chatrooms India’s market regulator will investigate possible leaks of company earnings in social media chat rooms, its chief Ajay Tyagi said on Friday, following a Reuters report this week that revealed prescient messages being posted in private groups.The Reuters investigation documented at least 12 cases of prescient messages about major Indian companies being posted in WhatsApp groups limited to traders. “We will certainly investigate the issue. It is a work in progress,” Tyagi, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), told Reuters, when asked what action the regulator was considering.India beefed up insider trading rules in early 2015, expanding what constitutes “unpublished price-sensitive information” to include “any information” that is not “generally available” and that could have ...

RBI wants leading rates to be linked with external benchmark rates Those who avail of home loans and personal loans could soon be on par with the big corporates when it comes to how banks calculate interest charges on borrowers. Interest rates on loans across the board would soon be benchmarked to external market rates as the banking regulator aims to put an end to opacity of loan pricing by banks. A Reserve Bank of India committee headed by Dr Janak Raj has suggested that interest rate on loans be pegged to anyone of the three benchmark rates such as T-bill, certificate of deposit rate or the RBI's repo rate rather than leaving it to the discretion of each bank. It also suggested a ban on banks charging a conversion fee whenever the bank resets the rate of interest. "Arbitrariness in calculating the base rate and MCLR and spreads charged over them has undermined the integrity of the interest rate setting process,'' RBI said in a statement.such as T-bill, certi...