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RBI asks listed firms to provide FPI data to depositories by May 15 Currently, the RBI receives data on investment made by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and non-resident Indians (NRIs) on stock exchanges from banks, based on which restrictions beyond a threshold limit is imposed on such investments in listed Indian companies The Reserve Bank today asked all listed companies to provide information on FPI investments to depositories before May 15 or else they will be barred from receiving foreign investments. Currently, the RBI receives data on investment made by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and non-resident Indians (NRIs) on stock exchanges from banks, based on which restrictions beyond a threshold limit is imposed on such investments in listed Indian companies. In order to enable listed companies to ensure compliance with various foreign investment limits, the RBI in consultation with market regulator SEBI has decided to put in place a new system for monitoring forei...

 Firms to challenge input tax credit notices, revenue department's stand According to Cenvat rules, companies have to reverse input tax credit on exempted turnover arising out of non-core businesses Some of the companies that have received notices to reverse input tax credit in service tax are planning to challenge the revenue department's stand at the commissioner level. According to them, they should not be served the notices as they have not given any services by investing in securities and mutual funds. The notice, if upheld, could have repercussions for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime as well as similar provisions exist in the new indirect tax regime as well. The companies have not been trading in stocks but investing in stocks and as such not providing any services, said Abhishek Rastogi, partner with Khaitan & Co. Experts said, services are provided by mutual funds, or brokers or investment advisers and not these firms. They are, in fact, recipient of...

RBI asks banks, firms to divulge more data on forex The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday told banks to share data with the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. The directive was in compliance with a notification by the Customs department on december 14, 2017 that said  banks must share all data regarding forex transactions of any individual. The RBI said banks should start following it with immediatie effect. The RBI also said a new format wil be released to motion foreign investments in listed indian firms.    The Business Standard, New Delhi, 04th May 2018

From bank info to e-way bills, govt eyes more data to curb tax evasion New Delhi: The Union government has signalled its intent to tighten scrutiny of businesses. For this, it is proposing to mine all data points, not just limited to direct and indirect taxes, but extending to transaction information collated from banks, details disclosed to the ministry of corporate affairs and the shops and establishment department of states and data collected from e-way bills. All of this will be part of the fraud analytics infrastructure the government is creating for indirect taxes. It will entail building a risk profile of the taxpayer using information such as sales, purchases, links with suspect firms and dealings in sensitive commodities under the goods and services tax (GST). The government is hoping that fraud analytics of the massive amount of information collected from various sources will help in plugging revenue leakages under GST by identifying methods employed by taxp...

 In non-payment of taxes, the authorities will follow it up with the seller, based on the liability generated from the invoice upload In a relief for businesses, the Goods and Services Tax Council is to simplify filing of returns at a meeting on Friday, through a ‘hybrid model’ recommended by a panel led by Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi. The proposed model is a fusion between the recommendation by Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani and the ‘provisional credit model’ suggested by government officers. A buyer will get input tax credit based on the seller's uploading of invoices, including missing ones. This would be irrespective of whether seller has actually paid the tax. “The Council will discuss (this). It is expected to get acceptance,” said an official.In the provisional credit model, the buyer would provisionally get input tax credit once he uploaded the missing invoices. This was to get reversed in three months if the seller had not uploaded the invoices and pa...

The revenue department will focus on quarterly average of GST revenues for better analysis of revenue trend, an official said.   While the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections in April- the first month of the current fiscal - came in at Rs 1.03 trillion, the average monthly collection last fiscal from August-March was Rs 898.85 billion "The department will look at quarterly revenue trends to better gauge the revenue trend. The aim is to increase the average revenue collection from what we achieved last fiscal," a senior official said. From 2018-19 fiscal, the government has shifted to a cash basis of accounting where revenues accrued at the completion of a month would be taken on record immediately at the end of the month. Accordingly, the Rs 1.03 trillion GST collected in April reflects the Central GST and State GST which accrued in March. While releasing the April tax collection data on Tuesday, the Finance Ministry had said that in March which is ...

 RBI policy relatively insulated from global monetary policy: Staff paper Monetary policy in India is largely independent of spillovers from unconventional global monetary policy, says a paper from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) staff. “Heightened sensitivity of foreign exchange and equity markets to global spillovers notwithstanding, there is no strong evidence of domestic monetary policy losing traction because of global spillovers,” said the paper. It is authored by Michael Patra, Sitikantha Pattanaik, Joice John and Harendra Behera. Patra is an executive director at RBI and member of the six-member Monetary Policy Committee. He has advised rate hikes several times against the other members voting for a pause, or even a cut. The other three are advisors to the monetary policy department. “Monetary policy transmission through the money and credit markets is unaffected by global spillovers. In the debt market, however, transmission is impacted, producing occasional overshoo...

Phase 1 of railways' game-changing freight corridor network will be ready by November The first phase of the Rs 81,000-crore dedicated rail freight corridors project is likely to be completed in November. Once thrown open, the western and the eastern corridors will reduce travel time between Delhi and Mumbai and Delhi and Howrah, the two most congested rail routes in the country, for both passengers and goods. The 1,500-km western freight corridor runs from Dadri near Delhi to Jawahar Lal Nehru Port Trust in Mumbai and the 1,800-km eastern corridor is from Ludhiana in Punjab to Dankuni in West Bengal. “We’ll be making 432 km part of the western corridor and 343 km of the eastern corridor operational by November,” said Anshuman Sharma, managing director, Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation, an arm of Indian Railways. “All the freight traffic that is currently on the rail routes between Delhi and Mumbai and Delhi and Kolkata would be moved to these corridors in parts to de...

GST surpasses Rs 1 trn in April, FM says this confirms upswing in economy If the governments at the Centre and in states indeed collect Rs 1 trillion, they will be able to garner Rs 12 trillion in 2018-19 The goods and services tax (GST) revenue collection crossed Rs 1 trillion in April, the highest in a month since the new indirect tax was rolled out in July last year. As many as 69.5 per cent of assessees filed summary input-output returns in April, against 64.61 per cent in the previous month. The mop-up at Rs 1.03 trillion far exceeded the Rs 898.8 billion average monthly collections for the first eight months after the GST was introduced, prompting Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to say that it mirrored enhanced economic activity. “GST collections in April exceeding Rs 1 trillion are a landmark achievement and a confirmation of increased economic activity as brought out by other reports,” he tweeted.However, the finance ministry clarified that the April collection could not be...

India’s curbs on import of pulses: US, Australia, EU raise concerns at WTO A commerce ministry official says India defended the restrictions on import of pulses as they are compliant with WTO rules Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) including the US, Canada, Australia, European Union and Japan have raised concern over India’s quantitative restrictions on import of pulses.India capped imports of green gram (moong) and black matpe (urad) at 300,000 tonnes and that of pigeon peas (arhar) at 200,000 tonnes in August in the wake of domestic harvest and concerns over the slump in prices of traditional pulses. The issue came up in a 20 April meeting of the committee on import licensing at the WTO with countries alleging that quantitative restrictions by India on import of pulses distort global prices and put the future of farmers across many countries in peril. India has been the largest producer, as well as traditionally the largest importer of pulses to ensure steady supply...

RBI widens FPIs’ investment scope in local corporate debt Mint Street late on Tuesday raised the incentive for Corporate India to tap the bond market for its working capital needs, allowing foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) to invest a fifth of their total corpus in less th an one-year residual debt papers sold by local companies. The latest directive extends last week’s concessions that effectively enhanced shortterm GSec ownership by overseas funds. Although the policy maker has not raised benchmark rates yet in Asia’s third-biggest economy, the cost of funds at the short end of the yield curve has accelerated much faster than the long end, threatening to increase working capital expenses in an economy where the weighted average cost of capital trends higher than developed countries. “In order to bring consistency across debt categories, it is stipulated that investments by an FPI in corporate bonds with residual maturity below one year shall not exceed, at any point in time...