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The government wants to fully insulate the goods and services tax (GST) technology backbone from hackers, amid growing risks of cyber-criminals misusing confidential information on transactions worth thousands of crores of rupees. Revenue secretary Hashmukh Adhia, who is overseeing the groundwork for implementing GST, told a group of banks, GSTN, Central bank and tax officials to plug all gaps on potential cyber-fraud and sabotage and get the IT backbone ready by September 30. GSTN — GST Network—has been tasked with creating a robust IT backbone to enable real-time taxpayer registration, filing returns, handle invoices, execute inter-state tax settlements, and connect states for twoway data flow for GST. The government expects about 3 billion transactions to take place every month through the network after GST kicks in. The tech network will be tested through a string of simulated dry runs before the new GST’s expected roll-out from April 1, 2017. These simulated exercises wi...

Government employees recruited after January 2004 would also be entitled to receive gratuity on retirement or death while in service, the Modi government decided on Friday. The Centre and many state governments switched to the new pension scheme from January 1, 2004, that required employees to contribute 10% of their monthly salary towards their pension with a matching contribution from the government. Some states, except West Bengal and Tripura, joined later. More than 300,000 central government employees recruited after 2004 are covered by the NPS. The Seventh Pay Commission had lamented that many of them might not have enough money in their pension fund at retirement due to the government’s inability to firm up the rules of the game on time. Employees covered by the National Pension Scheme (NPS) were not entitled to any additional benefits other than the government’s contribution to their pension fund. But it had been argued that this was unfair since the NPS only replaced t...

The finance ministry has set up a panel, led by former finance secretary Ratan Watal, to suggest steps to reduce cash transactions to promote card payments through incentives such as tax rebates and cash back schemes. The 11-member high-level panel has been tasked with reviewing the payment system in the country and suggest measures for encouraging digital payments. The panel will suggest various measures to “incentivise transactions through cards and digital means, for example, through tax rebates/incentives, introduction of cash back/lottery,” the ministry in a notification on its website. Other members of the panel include former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor H R Khan, secretary, or a nominee, from the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, heads of banking, technology and payments system industry bodies, and chairperson of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, among others. The panel has been asked to submit its report in one year. Business Standar...

The West Bengal government has temporarily shelved plans to discuss the GST Constitution Amendment Bill in a special West Bengal Assembly session on August 29th. “We need time to discuss GST amongst ourselves,” West Bengal Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee told Business Standard. However, he added the state has no stated objection to any of the clauses of GST. Business Standard New Delhi,27th August 2016

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) proposal to let listed Indian companies lend short-term money to banks could have ramifications for lenders’ current and savings account (Casa) portfolio, which banks ride on as a cheap source of funds. And, in a liquidity-deficit scenario, call money rates can also get influenced by corporates chipping in with their surplus funds. So far, companies could lend to banks for a minimum of seven-day tenure money. This, according to RBI, “constrains their participation”. So, it has proposed that such companies be allowed “to lend through the repo market, without any tenor or counterparty restrictions”. On Thursday, RBI said it was proposing that listed companies lend and borrow funds under repo for periods less than seven days, including overnight, and that unlisted companies only borrow under repos specifically against the collateral of special securities issued to them by the Government of India. “This will help improve liquidity by adding an ...

www.caonline.in News... 1. ICAI Membership/COP Fee for the year 2016-17 is due on 30th September, 2016. 2. MCA has notified the provisions of section 188 to 194 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016. 3. The state of Jammu & Kashmir CBDT further extends the ‘due-date’ for filing Return of Income from 31st August, 2016 to 30th September, 2016. 4. Last date for filing online MEF is extended to 10 Sept, 2016 & submission of hard copy of declaration 20 Sept, 2016. 5. Under GST, apply for registration in 30 days to get input tax credit for period prior to registration. Else get ITC from data of registration.

Fight for RERA' members meet Rao Inderjit Singh, highlight their concerns over some builder-centric rules in the new law Afraid that the Real Estate Regulation Act (RERA) might not help revive their stuck housing projects, home buyers are lobbying with the government to shine some light on the issue. `Fight for RERA', a pan-India grouping of home buyers, met Minister of State for Housing Rao Inderjit Singh to talk about buildercentric rules under the legislation which they claim will not help home buyers who are stuck in delayed projects. They, however, did not get a firm commitment from the minister. Fight for RERA members from Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata and the NCR also met Joint Secretary-Housing Rajiv Ranjan Mishra. The group has highlighted that draft rules under RERA do not specify which plan builders of ongoing projects need to submit when they register with the regulator ­ the original, sanctioned plan or the latest version, which may have been revised ...

NITI Aayog has prepared a Cabinet note that proposes if arbitration awards favour infrastructure companies, the government should pay up. If the award is unanimous, no appeal should be made, it adds. It has also suggested infrastructure ministries ease arbitration norms and release stalled payments. “This will de- bottleneck project development and will avert loss of time and blockage of capital,” said Kameswara Rao, partner (grid), PwC. Rao said it was not uncommon for infrastructure projects to face local implementation challenges and executing agencies should be empowered to accept reasonable variations. “Agencies must not fear subsequent challenges to their decisions,” he added. Bank executives said the proposal in the Cabinet note would help improve the financial health of companies. Companies facing payment delays could start repaying interest and principal on outstanding loans, they added. Niti Aayog’s proposal comes at a time when ? 1.65 lakh crore of banks’ ? 3...

With banks facing shortage of experienced staff for internal audits, the Reserve Bank of India ( RBI) on Thursday allowed them to hire their retired officials for up to three years for assistance in conducting “Risk Based Supervision ( RBS)”. RBI has also prescribed certain conditions for such hirings in the notification. Each bank, it said, should formulate, with the approval of their Board of Directors, a policy to engage the services of its retired personnel for a maximum tenure not exceeding three years in the areas where it does not have enough expertise. “The policy should inter alia include the terms of engagement, review of performance, termination of services...,” it said. Further, banks need to ensure that the retired personnel so engaged work under the close supervision of the management of the bank and the final sign- off of the audit reports would be the responsibility of the serving bank officials. Business Standard New Delhi,26th August 2016

In a bid to keep the nation’s tax laws in conformity with changing times, the Income Tax ( I- T) Department has created a permanent mechanism for seeking inputs from its officers for changes required in the direct tax regulations. To begin with, the I- T department has asked officials to provide suggestions for legislative changes in the direct tax laws. For receiving suggestions, it has created an exclusive email ID and instructed officials of the department to provide inputs through the year without waiting for beginning of the annual Budget exercise. Business Standard New Delhi,26th August 2016

The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday said corporate loans beyond the limit set by it would cost more from financial year 2017- 18, as banks have to maintain additional provisions and high capital for such exposures. In keeping with the corporate bond reforms, RBI also prescribed restrictions on banks taking incremental exposure on a single party, mostly corporate groups, beyond normal limits. The norms aim to curb concentration risks and enhance credit supply for large borrowers through markets. The banking system ordinarily keeps future incremental exposures to specified borrowers within the Normally Permitted Lending Limit (NPLL), RBI said. Exposures beyond NPLL will be deemed to carry higher risk. These will attract additional provisioning and higher risk weights, RBI said. Banks will have to keep an additional three per cent over and above the applicable provision on incremental exposures for excess NPLL. This will be distributed in proportion to each bank’sfunded exposu...