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The government has asked all banks to provide mobile banking facility to all customers  by March31 in a bid to push digital transactions.”What we have asked the banksto do is to enable all customerswhohave mobilesformobilebanking... Weareaskingbankstoruna nationwidecampaignupto March31toensurethatevery customerwhohasamobile phoneisenabledformobile banking,” ElectronicsandIT SecretaryArunaSundararajan toldreporters. Business Standard New Delhi,02th March 2017

Entitlement at minimum `300 per day in C-category towns compared to Rs 160 now The labour ministry has nearly doubled the minimum wage for agricultural labourers including those hired on contract, barely six months after a significant increase in minimum wages for non-agricultural labourers. The Centre had on August 1 last year raised minimum wages for non-agricultural workers 42%. According to a labour ministry notification, an unskilled agricultural labourer will be entitled to a minimum wage of `300 per day in C-category towns compared to `160 now while those in B and A category towns will get ` 303 and `333 respectively. Similarly, semi-skilled workers will be entitled to a daily minimum wage of `364, `335 and `307 in A, B and C-category towns while skilled workers will be paid `395, `364 and `334 under three catego ries respectively. Highly skilled workers will get `438, `407 and `364 in A, B and C-category towns. Wages prescribed by the state government will prevail over

The Government circulated draft of the GST Model Law requesting for suggestions from the industry . The industry and experts have been poring over the draft. The article seeks to highlight the need to reconsider one of the provisions related to input tax credits. The proposed GST Legislation appears to deny tax credit in relation to input services for which payments are made after three months of the date of the invoice of the supplier. In fact the proposal mandates payment of interest inaddition to the denial of credit. Also, under the current legislation,customer can re-claim the credit reversed earlier on making payment against the invoice. However, a similar provision is missing under GST and consequently may result in permanent loss ofinput credit of tax paid earlier. It appears that this proposal was inserted to mitigate benami transactions. This anxiety is clearly misplaced for several reasons: A) The compliance prescribed un der the GST regime requires every person making a su

The government´s efforts to disclose unaccounted deposited in banks ban have received response. At the end of February, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), also known as Income Declaration Scheme II, saw declarations crore, of which the Mumbai accounted for Rs.500 crore. Offeringafinal option of black money, the had on December 17 provided time until March 31 to come clean on deposits of banned currency notes in banks. For those holding unaccounted cash, the PMGKY proposed to tax 50 per cent of the declared amount and park 25 per cent in an interestfree deposit for The informal tax collection target for the scheme was over Rs.75,000 crore, double that of the Income Disclosure Scheme I. To collect that amount, the disclosure would have to be to the tune of Rs.1.5 lakh crore. The scheme is part of the Taxation Amendment) Act, by the Lok Sabha in December 2016. The tepid collection has prompted the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to conductavideo conference wi

Spooked by a recent breach of foreign ownership limit at HDFC Bank, regulators and intermediaries are grappling with the question of monitoring foreign investors in real time. Both held talks on exchange of data to track realtime behaviour of foreign investors.According to sources, the Securities and Exchange of India (Sebi) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) met last week to discuss the February breach at HDFC Bank.They also discussed whether new systems can installed to observe foreign shareholdings and prevent breaches of investment limits. At present, only the RBI monitors foreign investments daily. Its alarm goes off each time foreign ownership in a company breaches a certain limit, which is typically lower than the actual ceiling.However, that alarm goes off after market hours only; intraday, it never rings. Hence, the need for realtime monitoring. "There isa need for realtime data integration between depositories, custodians, and stock exchanges.If the stock exchange has

The government will consider the demands made by foreign retailers for allowing nonfood items such as home care products under the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy, Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Monday said. Last year, the government had allowed 100 per cent FDI in marketing of food products which are produced and manufactured in India. "Many big global retailers are keen to set up their stores in India after we allowed 100 per cent FDI in food processing sector. But they are demanding they should be allowed to sell nonfood items such as home care products," Badal told Press Trust of India. The minister on Monday heldameeting with representatives of 22 countries for inviting them to participate in World Food Fair to be organised in New Delhi in October. She said the representatives sought that foreign retailers be allowed to import food products for initial six to eight months to test these items in Indian market before establishing facilities in the country.

Exemptions, and the fact that farm income is outside the tax net, ensure that India´s tax GDP ratio stays low The view that Indians don´t pay their fair share of taxes resonates widely in public discourse.So much so that even Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented figures in his recent Budget to buttress the claim of India being a tax non compliant society. But how accurate is this widely held view? Is tax compliance, especially on the personal income tax side, as poor as is being made out to be? The data points in both directions. Economists point to the Economic Survey (201516) which showed that the average tax GDP ratio for emerging economies is 21.4 per cent, while that for India is way lower at 16.6 per cent. The difference is largely on the direct tax side where India´s tax GDP ratio is at 5.6 per cent compared to the emerging market average of 7.4 per cent.On the indirect tax side, India´s tax GDP ratio of 10.1 per cent is only marginally lower than the emerging market average