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Before fixing a new date for the presentation of Union budget for 2017-18, the government is likely to hold discussions with the Election Commission to avoid any clash with the schedule of five states headed for polls. Assembly elections are due to be held in February in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur. “When we traditionally had the Union budget presentation on the last day of February , the Election Commission always knew of it and would weave around poll schedule accordingly .Now that the government has decided to advance the budget, some kind of consultations need to happen with the Election Commission,“ a top official said. The Cabinet last week agreed to advance the presentation of the budget to complete the legislative exercise before the beginning of new financial on April 1 as it would help plan spending on schemes better and boost economy . The new date is yet to be decided. The finance ministry has proposed that the budget presentation be fixed fo...

Board Structure Gives Govt Strategic Control Of Network The structure of the board of the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) has enough safeguards to ensure the government has strategic control of the entity , its chairman has said, while asserting that security of sensitive data will have the highest level of protection. “Therefore, by the structu re of the board itself the government has ensured that no decision can be taken which is not supported by the government,“ GSTN chairman Navin Kumar told TOI, while expressing confidence that the system would be ready before GST rolls out on April 1, 2017. “This concern that (since) they (private entities) have 51%, they can control it -they cannot control it. No board meeting can take place unless at least 50% of directors present are from the government.“ The Indian Revenue Service officers' association has opposed the move to let GSTN manage the IT system. BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy has also written to PM Narend...

Soon you will able to withdraw your pension using your smartphone Pensioners and members of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) can breathe easy with the state-run pension fund manager planning to develop a mobile application and move a large chunk of its services online. “We are developing an app for pensioners and hope to roll it out by early next year,“ V P Joy , central provident fund commissioner told TOI. The app for pensioners is expected to reduce the enormous amount of paperwork and time taken to process applications. Verification will be done through electronic know your customer (e-KYC) using the Aadhaar number. The organisation has also undertaken a massive effort to upgrade its technology so that subscribers are able to use its services online without any interface with officials at the EPFO. “The idea is that people can access most of our services online and that is where we are headed. Online services will start by early next year,“ he said, adding t...

Even as the last date of the income disclosure scheme (IDS) — a governmentprovided opportunity for those holding unaccounted money to come out clean — draws closer, the tax department has sent out mails exhorting people to make the most of it to avoid penal action. The mails were addressed to people who have made large transactions or investments disproportionate to their sources of income, government officials said. The four-month compliance window under the IDS for voluntary disclosure of domestic black money ends on September 30. With just a few days left, the government is anxious to make it a success. The tax department has sourced information on these people as well as their transactions from banks and property registration authorities across the states over the last six years. It reportedly has a list of more than 90 lakh non-PAN transactions. “The letter is not intended to offend anybody. It does not even mention the transaction that led to its issuance. We have just ad...

When passing wealth to their children, some parents want to give more to one than to the others. This could be because one son is financially worse off than his siblings, or one has a bigger family to provide for. In many business families, the patriarch hands over the reins of the business to the child he thinks is more capable. But, in doing so, many times parents end up hurting the child they think can do with less. Such arrangements often get challenged in court. There have been many such cases, like a recent one involving a famous business family in Mumbai. The children of the elder son, who severed ties with the family many years earlier, recently claimed a stake in the business alleging that their uncle ( younger son of the patriarch) had been enjoying the family wealth while they had not got what they deserved. One way to deal with such a situation is to form a trust. “ A well- drafted trust deed can minimise the possibility of a dispute. It’s flexible. A head of family c...

The advancement of the Union Budget day by a month will make the government richer as tax collections are set to be healthier, according to experts.Economists said that Rs.80,000-Rs.1 lakh crore could get added into the government kitty as budget proposals will get implemented with effect from the first day of the fiscal. For instance, the changes in levies such as service tax made in Budget 2016 came into effect on June 1. From next year such changes will be implemented from April 1.  This way the government will earn service tax revenues for two extra months. “It a very positive move and will bring in certainty once the budget is presented at the beginning of the year,” DK Joshi, chief economist, Crisil said. The government also put an end to the distinction between plan and non-plan expenditure. “Removal of the distinction between plan and non-plan expenditure will simplify and streamline decision-making and help in efficient use of resources,” Chandrajit Banerjee, director gen...

KEEPING THAT BALANCE Speaking at Incredible India Global Investors' Summit, FM says the more the exemptions, the higher will be the rate A day before the Centre and states sit down to thrash out key issues of the goods and services tax (GST), finance minister Arun Jaitley has cautioned against too many exemptions, warning it will lead to higher rates for others. “More the exemptions, the higher will be the rate... Because when you exempt some people, you charge others a higher rate. For everybody to accept exemptions, actually would end up in a higher rate,“ Jaitley said at the Incredible India Global Investors' Summit while making a larger case against incentives and exemption. “India indefinitely cannot survive and sustain merely on regimes of incentives and exemptions,“ he said. The GST Council, a body of the Centre and states, will meet for the first time on Thursday and Friday to decide on GST rates, exemptions, thresholds at which it will kick in, and other details of th...

States want the empowered committee of state finance ministers to continue, though a GST (Goods and Services Tax) Council has been set up to recommend on key areas such as draft model Bills, rates, dual control of central and state officials over assesses. "The states want the empowered committee to function parallel to the GST Council. The empowered committee will help states create consensus on key issues to be taken up by the GST Council," said a government official. The GST Council is headed by the finance minister, while the empowered committee is chaired by a state finance minister. West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra is the current chairman of the empowered panel. Doubts over the existence of the empowered committee arose after the constitution of the GST Council. The committee was set up in 2000 to monitor implementation of uniform floor rates of sales tax by states and Union territories, monitor phasing out of sales tax-based incentive schemes and roll out of va...

A day before the GST Council's first meeting, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) on Wednesday came out with an extensive clarifications detailing taxability of e-commerce players and taxi aggregators under the new setup. The 268-page frequently asked questions (FAQ) booklet, released by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, answered 500 questions on 24 topics, including registration, valuation and payment, scope and time of supply, refunds, seizure and arrest. It has also clarified that taxi aggregators, including Ola, will have to register under goods and services tax (GST) and there will be no threshold exemption for them. Similarly, e-commerce players such as Flipkart and Amazon will have to seek registration under the GST regime, irrespective of the value of supply made by them. It also clarified that companies, including Titan, which supply watches and jewels through their own websites, will not be considered as e-commerce operators. “A person providing any information o...

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the merger of the Railway and General Budgets from 2017-18, ending a 92-year-old colonial tradition. It also cleared abolishing the classification of Plan and non-Plan expenditure in the Budget and agreed in-principle to advancing its presentation in Parliament from the last working day in February. The government wants the Finance Bill to be passed before April 1. “The government is in favour of advancing the Budget date. However, a number of states are going to the polls early next year. We will take a call on a new date after studying the election calendar,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said at a press conference after the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are slated to go to the polls early next year. Suresh Prabhu will be the last railway minister to have presented a Budget and Jaitley will be the first finance minister to present a combined one next year. “India was the only country with a separa...

Mobile phone manufactures have approached the finance ministry seeking continuation of the differential duty structure and the benefits that come with it, which they fear would become a casualty when the goods and services tax comes into effect.Absence of these incentives could put at risk a manufacturing industry that is worth Rs.54,000 crore now and is set to grow to Rs.94,000 crore by the end of this fiscal year. “We look forward to your kind support in establishing the proposed dispensation in GST and clearing the air on the principle of duty differential in the upcoming GST regime,“ the Indian Cellular Association wrote in a letter to Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia. The association represents major handset makers including Samsung, Apple and Micromax. ET has seen a copy of its letter sent on Saturday. Mobile phone manufacturers were among the first to respond to the Prime Minister's Make in India call, making in vestments in local assembly facilities. Value of local p...