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With an aim to deepen the nascent commodity market, Sebi is likely to give mutual funds the go-ahead to trade in commodity markets in a month, while the regulator is also in talks with the RBI to allow institutional investors like banks and FPIs to trade in the segment. Mutual funds' participation in commodities derivatives would be the first one to happen among institutional investors," Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) Chairman U K Sinha today said, and hinted that the move could be implemented in a month. Sinha, whose term as Sebi Chairman ends on March 1, was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the regulator's international conference on commodity derivatives. On allowing participation of banks, alternative investment funds and foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) in commodities, he said Sebi is in active consultation with the Reserve Bank over the issue. "Our argument with RBI has been, in any case bank's have huge exposure to commodit

The Employees´ Provident Fund Organisation has extended the deadline for its subscribers to submit Aadhaar number to March 31 from February 28. An order also said the deadline for submitting Aadhaarlinked digital life certificate has also been extended till March 31, 2017. PTI< President nod for wages via cheques or emode The central and state governments can now specify industrial units and other establishments which will have to pay wages either through cheques or by electronic transfors into workers´ bank accounts, according toanew law. President Pranab Mukherjee recently approved the Payment of Wages (Amendment) Act, 2017, an official order said. The Act enables employers to pay wages to workers through cheque or by transferring into their bank account without their written authorisation. Business Standard New Delhi,18th Februray 2017

The income tax department is "verifying" over Rs.4.5 lakh crore of suspicious deposits made by 1.8 million people after the note ban and will send ´nonstatutory´ letters to those who have not responded to its SMS and email queries seeking explanation. Business Standard New Delhi,18th February 2017

After thrashing out the contentious issue of administrative turf, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is set to meet state finance ministers on Saturday for what could be the secondlast meeting of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) Council before the expected July 1 rollout of the new indirect tax system. On the agenda are the ratification of supporting pieces of the GST legislation andaproposed compensation law. Most of the contentious issues the council has been dealing with, including crossempowerment or dual control and rate slabs, have been dealt with in the previous meetings. The 10th meeting of the GST Council to be held at Udaipur would be crucial. The council´s consent to the draft integrated GST, central GST, and state GST Bills are required before the first two can be taken up in the Budget session. The Parliament session would reconvene on March 9. Each state´s legislature will also have to pass their own state GST laws. “The GST council meeting on Saturday could be the second

Tax authorities are investigating Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN) for possible service tax evasion. GSTN was floated to create the technology platform for combined indirect tax levy . CEO Prakash Kumar of GSTN, where banks and financial institutions are majority shareholders, was initially summoned by service tax superintendent with the books of accounts, details of funds received from the Centre as well as a copy of the agreement with Infosys, which is designing the system along with payments made to the IT major. An official, however, said that the “summon does not exist now“, indicating that the letter which had been issued last Saturday was withdrawn. “I have not received anything,“ GSTN CEO Prakash Kumar told TOI adding that the GST network operator had paid all taxes on time including service tax. Tax experts said GSTN was liable to pay service tax under the rules. “Though service provided by government is in negative list but service provided by a company to governm

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has proposed that the merchant discount rate (MDR or charge) on debit card transactions be rationalised on the basis of turnover. Transactions up to Rs.2,000 do not attractacharge but this is to end on March 31. The central bank issued draft guidelines on its website that propose the MDR be “on the basis of merchant turnover, rather than present slabrate based on transaction value”. Besides, there should be differentiated MDR for the government and QRcode related transactions. Also, “there isaneed to differentiate MDR between acquiring infrastructure involving physical terminals, including mobile pointofsale, or mPOS, and digital acceptance infrastructure models such as QR code”. RBI proposes that whereamerchant is willing to pay upfront for the card acceptance infrastructure, the MDR has to be on the lower side. The draft proposes different categories of merchants, based on the categories proposed in the coming goods and services tax (GST). For example

With an aim to boost digital payments, the government has said that all matters related to promotion of digital transactions will be handled by the ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity).According to an order issued by the Cabinet Secretariat, “Promotion of digital transactions including digital payments” has been delegated to the IT Ministry. On Thursday, President Pranab Mukherjee gave his approval to amend the ‘Government of India, Allocation of Business Rules, 1961’ to assign the new role of accelerating digital payments to the ministry. “Promotion of digital transactions including digital payments has been formally assigned under the purview of Meity. The digital payments mission is expected to be set up shortly by the ministry,” said an official from IT ministry, who did not wish to be named. The IT ministry is tasked with promotion of e-governance for empowering citizens, promoting inclusive and sustainable growth of the electronics and information technolo