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Govt Clarifies GST Applicability on Financial Services Goods and services tax applies to exit loads charged by mutual funds, additional interest charged for default in payment of loan instalments and late payment charges levied by credit card companies, the government has said. Securitisation, future contracts, derivatives and forward contracts in commodities, unless entailing actual delivery of commodities, will however not be liable to this tax which was introduced on July 1 last year. The detailed clarifications for the financial services sector issued in the form of frequently asked questions (FAQs) seeks to address some pertinent issues relating to the industry such as levy of tax on free services. The FAQs issued late Saturday night cover banking, insurance and capital markets. For banks, automated tellers machines or ATMs will not constitute place of business and will not trigger GST registration, the government said. In case services are provided by multiple branches to...

Amended child labour act a mirage' Justice Ranjan Gogoi, who is to take over as the next Chief Justice of India, on Friday expressed serious concern over “concern-deficit” reflected in policy and legislation and stressed the need to ensure that children got an environment in which they could realise their full potential. Speaking at a function to release ‘Every Child Matters’, a book authored by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, Justice Gogoi said children in India were victims of “tyranny of indifference”. He contradicted Satyarthi who said India’s laws against child labour were the best in the world. “The 2016 Amendment to the Child Labour Act, for example, is a mirage to say the least. The idea of the Amendment was to make the child labour law more stringent so as to realise the mandate of the Right to Education Act, 2009, i.e., a child in the age group of 6 to 14 be enabled to receive elementary education. “Now, to expect this age to be raised to 18 years will be like...

SEBI tells mutual funds to enforce Amfi guidelines The Amfi guidelines also ask intermediaries to refrain from recommending inappropriate products The Securities and Exchange Board of India has asked fund houses to follow the 'best practices' guidelines issued by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi). It has reiterated the need for sticking to guidelines that stipulate a cap on payment of upfront commission to distributors. Issued by Amfi to take effect from April 2015, this had capped upfront commission at 100 basis points (bps). “The regulator has said it is high time the industry players followed the guidelines in both letter and spirit,” said the chief executive of a fund house. To shore up assets in a rising market, funds resorted to high upfront commissions for distributors in the past financial year. The commissions paid for selling open-ended equity schemes went as high as 200 bps. Those for closed-end ones stood at 5 to 6 per cent, said experts. T...

 GST collection in May declines to Rs 940 billion, misses Rs 1-trillion mark Of the total collection, Central GST (CGST) stood at Rs 158.66 billion The goods and services tax (GST) yielded Rs 940.16 billion in May, 4.5 per cent higher than the average monthly collection last year, backed by improved compliance due to the introduction of the e-way bill, which tracks the movement of goods. Incremental impact on revenues is expected over the next few months, when the e-way bill system becomes mandatory even for intra-state movement of goods. The mop-up is, however, lower than the Rs 1 trillion collected in April, although the two cannot be compared since the arrears of the earlier months are paid by year-end. The May collection is higher than the average revenue of Rs 898.8 billion collected in the first nine months since the GST roll-out in 2017-18. “This reflects better compliance after the introduction of e-way bills. Some people are comparing the May collection figure wi...

SBI raises lending rates by 10 bps, followed by PNB, ICICI Bank, HDFC SBI's one-year MCLR, which most loans are based on, is now 8.25% State Bank of India (SBI) raised its benchmark lending rates by 10 basis points (bps), followed by Punjab National Bank (PNB), ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC). Bankers said it was to pass on the rising cost of funds to customers and an effort to protect the net interest margin. As the rise was small, it would not affect demand for credit. While SBI, ICICI, Kotak Mahindra and PNB raised their marginal cost of funds-based lending rate (MCLR) by 10 basis points, HDFC raised its retail prime lending rate likewise. While the others kept the base rate unchanged, PNB raised its by 10 basis points. SBI’s one-year MCLR, which most loans are based on, is now 8.25 per cent. Those of ICICI and PNB are 8.4 per cent and Kotak Mahindra's is 8.9 per cent Interest rates on all rupee loans sanctioned and credi...

Govt meets fiscal deficit target of 3.5% at Rs 5.92 trillion for 2017-18 Nayar said the revival in investment activity was not broadbased because fresh capacity was being added by companies only in a few sectors. "Other indicators offered differing trends, such as the 7.1 per cent contraction observed in the capital spending of a sample of 10 state governments (Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh) in the fourth quarter of 2017-18. Moreover, the value of new projects and completed projects contracted on a year-on-year basis in during the quarter," she added. Government spending growth, shown by public administration, defence and other Services touched 13.3 per cent, against 7.7 per cent in the previous quarter. The fiscal deficit target for 2017-18 was revised to 3.5 per cent of GDP from 3.2 per cent due to lower-than-expected revenue from the GST that was rolled out from July 1, and less-than-anticip...

RBI monetary policy: Economists see rate hike latest by August Garg said he did not see any correlation between oil prices and GDP growth, and the fiscal deficit would remain within target. Investment activity, a proxy for gross fixed capital formation, posted 14 per cent growth, the highest in several quarters, compared to 9 per cent, year on year, in the previous quarter. "The 9 per cent growth rate for capital goods and the expansion in the government's capital spending in January-February led to the healthy expansion of gross fixed capital formation in the quarter," said Aditi Nayar, principal economist, ICRA.  The Business Standard, New Delhi, 1st June 2018

Core sector growth gains pace, marginally up 4.7% in April That it was largely led by the government's infrastructure push is indicated by the fact that the construction sector growth recovered to 11.5 per cent during the fourth quarter, against 6.6 per cent in the third quarter, and 3.1 per cent in the second. Led by manufacturing and construction, growth in all sectors, except for services, speeded up sequentially in the fourth quarter. The Business Standard, New Delhi, 1st June 2018

India's agriculture growth slips to 4.5% in Q4 on higher base For 2017-18, overall full year, growth in agriculture and allied activities was estimated at 3.4 per cent as against 6.3 per cent clocked in 2016-17 India’s agriculture growth in the January to March quarter of 2017-18 dipped to 4.5 per cent as compared to 7.1 per cent in the same period last year despite a bumper production largely because of higher base. Though, the 4.5 per cent growth in agriculture and allied activities clocked during the fourth quarter of 2017-18 was highest in the year, but it wasn’t good enough to pull overall farm sector growth to over 4 per cent in 2017-18 full year. For 2017-18, overall full year, growth in agriculture and allied activities was estimated at 3.4 per cent as against 6.3 per cent clocked in 2016-17. Going forward, experts believed that if monsoon remains fairly normal in 2018 also, India might clock a 4 per cent growth in agriculture and allied activities. Graph Gross Va...

Tax Reforms to Expand Revenue Base: Moody's Tax reforms are likely to expand revenue base in fast growing economies like India but they will be most effective when accompanied by lowering of fiscal deficit and effective management of expenditure, Moody’s Investors Service said on Thursday. The Business Standard, New Delhi, 1st June 2018

RBI withdraws rule exceptions for NBFCs owned by govt The decision will ensure both types of NBFCs stand on an equal footing on compliance with specific RBI rules The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has ended the special dispensations granted earlier for non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs) owned by the government. Instead, it has specified a roadmap, stretching till 2021-22, for these lenders to meet the norms on capital adequacy, provisioning and corporate governance. Among the entities affected are IFCI, Power Finance Corporation, India Infrastructure Finance Company, Indian Railway Finance Corporation, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency and Housing & Urban Development Corporation. “It has been decided to make the NBFC regulations applicable to government NBFCs, as per the timeline” provided in the new circular, states RBI’s notification. Some of the changes that government NBFCs would now have to comply with include the treatment of income recognition, beside ...