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Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday tried to calm fears over an amendment to the Finance Bill giving more powers to income tax (IT) officials. He played down charges that this was an “undeclared Emergency”. The FM said the amendment related only to disclosure of the source of information regarding alleged tax evaders. Jaitley, in his reply to the debate on the Finance Bill, 2017, in to make Aadhaar cards mandatory for filing ITreturns and applying forapermanent account number (PAN), claiming it might become the only identity card in the future. He also assured of action against 929,000 entities which had not responded to the ITdepartment´s queries over amounts that did not match income profile deposited in their accounts between November 8 and December 31. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the demonetisation of old series Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes on November 8. Those who had money in these denominations were allowed to deposit it in their accounts til...

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will go through a third-party assessment of its regulatory framework by the World Bank and the IMF this year, an exercise which will help the former align itself closer to global regulatory standards and get feedback on its current functioning. The assessment will be conducted as part of the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP), a joint programme of the IMF and World Bank established in 1999. The programme analyses the resilience of a country's financial sector, the quality of its regulatory and supervisory framework, and the capacity to manage and resolve financial crises. This is the third time Sebi is going through this programme, with previous supervisions in 2012 and 2001, which was a pilot assessment. In September 2010, IMF had made it mandatory for 25 jurisdictions (including India), with systemically important financial sectors to undergo financial stability assessments under the FSAP every five years. Among ot...

The Employees´ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has decided to reduce administrative charges to 0.65 per cent of total wages of an employee from April 1,amove that will result in savings of Rs.1,000 crore annually for 600,000 employers. The EPFO´s decisionmaking body, the Central Board of Trustees, had approved the proposal to reduce the administrative charges to 0.65 per cent from the existing 0.85 per cent of total wages. Business Standard New Delhi,23rd March 2017

TAKING A CALL Move to benefit those looking at succession planning; the finance bill proposes to make Aadhaar a must for getting PAN card & filing income tax returns Gifts to trusts in the form of money or property for the benefit of relatives will not be taxed. The finance bill, approved by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, has amended the original proposal that had expanded the scope of gifts to include money or property received for no consideration by trusts. Gifts received from trusts registered under section 12A of the Income Tax Act will also be excluded. Besides, trusts receiving dividend income will be exempt from the additional 10% tax on dividend income exceeding `10 lakh. The move benefits those looking at succession planning. The provision had been introduced in the finance bill to prevent abuse and the exclusion was made to avoid hardship in genuine cases, a government official said. “This is a welcome amendment and would not impact succession planning through trust...

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Wednesday said municipalities planning to issue bonds on private placement basis next financial year will have to submit audited accounts for past three financial years starting 201314 to bourses. The decision has been taken after receiving feedback from municipal corporations. In view of the operational procedures followed by them, it would be difficult for them to submit the audited accounts for the immediately preceding financial year, it said. Shankara Building IPO subscribed 51% on Day 1 The initial public offering(IPO) of Shankara Building Products was subscribed 51percent on the first day of the issue on Wednesday. The IPO received bid sfor 2,700,704 shares against the total issue siz eof  5,2,94,67 shares, data available with the NSE till1830 hoursshowed.   The non institutional investors category  was subscribed 10percent, while retail investorsportion 98 percent. The Bengaluru based retailer Shankara...

Harmonising efforts to curb flow of cash and unaccounted money into the political system, the Lok Sabha on Wednesday approved the government´s proposal to relax conditions for contributions made by corporate entities. This will also facilitate the broadening of political funding channels. Besides removing the cap for contributions, companies will also be allowed to keep the names of political parties confidential in their accounts. The move was proposed as part of the amendments to the Finance Bill, 2017, by the government. This effectively means that Parliament has passed it. The Rajya Sabha does not have any power to rejectamoney Bill. Till now, corporate entities could contribute only 7.5 per cent of average net profit in the past three financial years. This cap has been removed, allowing free flow of funds to political parties. For this, provisions of the Companies Act will be amended as part of the Finance Bill. Besides, another provision in the Companies Act w...

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is evaluating the category of benchmarks being currently used to compare the returns of mutual fund (MF) schemes. The net asset value (NAV) of MF schemes takes into account dividends for computing returns. The schemes are, however, benchmarked against “price return" indices that do not take into consideration the dividend component. On an average, the dividend yield for Indian equities works out to 1.25-2 per cent for a year. In other words, dividend yields can add anywhere between 1.25 per cent and two per cent to the returns of MF schemes “The NAV of schemes takes into consideration the valuation of the security as well as the dividend. So the NAV that comes out is a ‘total return’ NAV. The benchmark indices that are available are all ‘price’ indices. We need to move in a direction where there is a like-to-like comparison," said a Sebi official. Total return benchmark indices assume that any cash distribution, such a...