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  Gross goods and services tax (GST) collection for December rang up over Rs 1.49 trillion, the data released by the finance ministry showed. This is a surge of 15 per cent year-on-year, mainly driven by increase in retail prices of consumption items, high inflation, and action taken to ensure compliance. This was the third-highest monthly collection since the tax was introduced in July 2017. GST collection touched a record high of Rs 1.68 trillion in April and touched over Rs 1.51 trillion in October. “This is the tenth month in a row — that monthly GST revenue has been more than Rs 1.4 trillion,” the ministry said on Sunday while releasing the data. If the trend continues, overall GST collection may exceed the budgetary estimate by Rs 1.3-1.4 trillion, experts estimate. The Budget 2022 set the Central GST (CGST) target at Rs 6.6 trillion, excluding the compensation cess. Between April and December, CGST collection stood at more than Rs 5.5 trillion. “The headline GST numbers rema...

  On Wednesday, the Reserve Bank of India announced a 35-basis-point increase in the repo rate to 6.25 per cent. The RBI Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted to raise the rate to bring elevated inflation back towards its target of 4 per cent, governor Shaktikanta Das said. The six-member MPC, which held its bi-monthly policy meeting from December 5 to 7, remained focused on withdrawing accommodation. The MPC’s rate action was not unanimous, with 5 out of 6 members voting for the rate hike. The decision on the stance was also not unanimous, with 4 out of six members voting for the retention of the stance. The Standing Deposit Facility rate – which represents the floor of the interest rate corridor, is now 35 bps higher at 6 per cent. The Marginal Standing Facility rate, which is the upper band of the interest rate corridor, has also been increased by 35 bps to 6.50 per cent The rate hike was in line with market expectations – A Business Standard poll of 10 respondents had predicted...

  Shares of rate sensitive sectors such as financials, automobiles and real estate traded on a mixed note after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday hiked the repo rate by 35 basis points (bps) to 6.25 per cent.   RBI also lowered its GDP growth forecast for FY23 to 6.8 per cent from 7 per cent earlier. The policy rate is now at the highest level since August 2018. The RBI continued to keep the rate hike stance unchanged at “withdrawal of accommodation”.   At 10:35 AM, the Nifty Bank, Nifty Financial Services, Nifty PSU Bank and Nifty Private Bank indices were up in the range of 0.10 per cent to 0.90 per cent. While, Nifty Auto and Nifty Realty indices were down 0.22 per cent and 0.15 per cent, respectively. In comparison, the Nifty 50 was up marginally 0.06 per cent at 18,653.   Central Bank of India, UCO Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Bank of India and Bank of Maharashtra from the PSU space were up between 3 per cent and 8 per cent on the National Stock Exchan...

  A search and seizure action was initiated by the Income Tax Department on few business groups engaged in coal trading/ transportation, execution of civil contracts, extraction of iron ore and production of sponge iron, on 04.11.2022. Those searched include two politically exposed persons and their associates. The searches were carried out at more than 50 premises spread over Ranchi, Godda, Bermo, Dumka, Jamshedpur, Chaibasa, Patna, Gurugram, and Kolkata.   The search operation has led to the seizure of large number of incriminating documents and digital evidences. A preliminary analysis of these evidences indicates that these groups have resorted to various modus-operandi of tax evasion including inflation of expenses, transactions of loans in cash, payments/receipts in cash and suppression of production. During the search, it has also been found that investments have been made in immovable properties, the source of which could not be fully explained.   The search opera...

  Centre and state GST officers are working with online gaming sector experts to define 'games of skill' and 'games of chance' with a view to design different taxation structures for them, sources said.  The vexed issue of levying Goods and Services Tax (GST) on online games has been hanging fire for over a year now with many states pitching for a lower tax rate on those online games which require skill. They are of the opinion that games of skill should not be treated at par with games of chance. The absence of a clear definition often leads to tax notices being sent to online game portals and subsequent litigations. ccording to sources, the GST Council's Law Committee, which met in Bengaluru on Saturday, discussed the issues concerning definition for 'games of skill' and 'games of chance' with technical domain experts.   As all states are not part of the law committee, the draft report on definition would be shared with all states for their views. ...

  Corporates will not be allowed from being even a minority shareholder in consortium who want to bid for 61 per cent stake in IDBI Bank, as the current RBI norms which bar industrial houses from becoming bank promoters, an official said. As of now, RBI guidelines allow industrial houses to hold a maximum of 10 per cent stake in private sector banks, but they cannot be a promoter. Last week, the Central government and Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC)  said that they will together divest 60.72 per cent stake in IDBI Bank. However, it barred large industrial houses from participating in the strategic sale. As per the bid document, 'large industrial/corporate houses' has been defined an industrial/ corporate group with assets of ?5,000 crore or more with the non-financial business of the group accounting for 40 per cent or more in terms of total assets/ gross income. An official said that corporate houses have not been permitted to participate in the bidding process for ...

  Digital Banking Units (DBU), which were inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, will further augment the country's digital infrastructure, Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das said.  “This will act as an enabler in the digital ecosystem and will improve customer experience by facilitating seamless banking transactions,” Das said in his speech. “The DBUs will augment our efforts to promote financial inclusion by providing banking services in a paperless, efficient, safe and secure environment.” The specific financial services to be extended by the DBUs include, savings, credit, investment and insurance. “On the credit delivery front, to start with, the DBUs will provide end-to-end digital processing of small ticket retail and MSME loans, starting from online applications to disbursals,” Das said. DBUs will also provide services related to certain identified government sponsored schemes.   The products and services in these Units will be provided ...

  The Income Tax Department is undertaking searches at the Delhi-based independent think tank Centre for Policy Research, as reported by news agency ANI. The premises of the think tank located near Malcha Marg in central Delhi are being covered, they said. The exact reason for conducting the survey, where only business premises are covered by the taxman, was not known. Income Tax sources said that the search is being carried out based on "credible information" about tax evasion. The sources said the search "is not linked to" the income tax searches underway across some states as part of the probe into alleged tax evasion and financial impropriety by unrecognised political parties over donations received without statutory compliances. According to its website,The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) has been one of India’s leading public policy think tanks since 1973. CPR is a non-profit, non-partisan, independent institution dedicated to conducting research that contrib...

  The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has restructured its high-level panel on cyber security that suggests measures to safeguard the capital markets from such attacks. The committee, which has now six members, will be chaired by Navin Kumar Singh, DG at National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC), news agency PTI report said. It is important to note that the committee had only four members earlier, an update with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) showed. The other members of the panel include Sanjay Bahl Director General at Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and H Krishnamurthy, who was a chief research scientist at IISC Bangalore. Sandeep Shukla and Debdeep Mukhopadhyay, who are professors at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in IIT Kanpur and IIT Kharagpur, respectively, and Sugata Gangopadhyay, head of the department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Roorkee, are the other members...

  Central bank digital currency (CBDC), to be launched this year, could become a tool for reducing time and cost for cross-border transactions, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar said on Wednesday. The RBI has proposed to launch on a pilot basis this year, as announced in the Budget by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. In the Union Budget for 2022-23, the finance minister had said the RBI would roll out a digital equivalent to the rupee in the current financial year. "We have to understand that internationalisation of CBDC is crucial to addressing the payments issue that bodies like G-20 and Bank for International Settlements (BIS) are dealing with now," he said at India Ideas Summit. Observing that India has an excellent, cheap and fast domestic payments system, he said the cost of cross-border payment, however, is still high. There is a lot of scope for improvement in terms of both cost and speed, he noted.   CBDC is probably the most efficient answer to this, he...

  After receiving repeated enquiries on the authorisation status of certain electronic trading platforms for foreign exchange transactions, the Reserve Bank of India has released a list of entities that are not authorised to undertake such trades. The list, which will be referred to as an ‘alert list’, is not exhaustive and is based on the latest information available to the RBI at the time, the central bank said on Wednesday. The list includes entities that are neither authorised to deal in foreign exchange under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 nor to operate electronic trading platforms for forex transactions. The central bank’s list has a total of 34 entities. Some of the entities listed are Alpari, AnyFX, Ava Trade, Binomo, e Toro, Exness, Expert Option, FBS, FinFxPro and Forex.com. OctaFX, one of the entities which has been listed, is an official sponsor of the Delhi Capitals team in the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, reports said. Websites of some of thes...