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Transfer pricing & advance tax requirements won't apply to cos whose POEM is here Indian companies with overseas subsidiaries are likely to get some leeway around transfer pricing, withholding tax and advance tax requirements under the place of   effective management (POEM) rules, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The government is considering issuing a circular saying that these requirements won't apply to companies whose POEM is in India, they said.It would clarify that POEM   is only for income declaration purpose in India, one of them added. Such a clarification is expected to stop trigger happy income tax officers from complicating matters for Indian multinationals. POEM is a framework introduced by the government in the current financial year to determine the tax payable by a foreign company , including subsidiaries of local   firms, which for all purposes is managed from India. Previously , such companies weren't required to pay tax in Ind

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked why there was no objection from lawmakers on the government’s decision to make Aadhaar mandatory for making permanent account   number (PAN) cards, a move which was given effect by the latest budget from July 1. “542 persons are sitting in Parliament, why do they not object to it? If they are not objecting, why should we go into it,” a Bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and   Ashok Bhushan said. When it was told that the Centre has earlier made a statement in the apex court that it would not make Aadhaar mandatory, the Bench said, “They cannot be bound by it.  It cannot preclude Parliament from enacting a statutory provision.” The court was hearing three petitions challenging the constitutional validity of section 139AA of the Income Tax (IT) Act. Section 139AA, introduced through the latest   Budget and the Finance Act, 2017, provides for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar or enrolment ID of Aadhaar application form for filing of I-T retur

As with most consumer goods companies, Emami, a Kolkata-based FMCG major, is gearing up for the goods & services tax (GST), to commence on July 1. NARESH BHANSALI, its chief financial officer, talks to Viveat Susan Pinto on the preparations.  What changes have been introduced in your organisation in the run-up to GST? GST preparedness is an ongoing process, something we began about a year ago. The point is to understand the impact of this new tax regime on business.  This is the most critical part of the exercise of transiting to the new system. Everything else will fall in place once the organisation knows how GST impacts it. To the extent there is clarity, we've been gearing up for GST.  Our IT (information technology) infrastructure, for instance, is one area we've been focusing on. This will be the backbone of GST, since everything will be online. We have an in-house IT team of 30 people, which is preparing the framework to help us transit to the ne

Although the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) gotatepid response, advance tax and selfassessment tax collections in the last financial year registered the   highest growth rate in at least five years, suggesting many people regularised their unaccounted income by recording it in the books. Advance tax grew by 15 per cent in 2016-17, compared to 7.5 per cent in the previous financial year, while selfassessment tax, which can be declared for two previous   years, sawa24 per cent jump as against five per cent in 2015-16. “The trend in tax collection for 2016-17 indicates that many people tried to regularise their income   through the normal accounting route. This was an obvious route to take if you see the tax rate differential between the PMGKY and normal tax incidence,” saidasenior government official. “We haven´t seen such robust collection in at least five years, as 2012-13 is the readily available data we have at the moment,” he added. The PMGKY, an amnesty sche

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday that the Narendra Modi government will not impose any tax on agriculture income. This came after Bibek Debroy, member of the Centre´s main thinktank, the NITI Aayog, seemed to suggest in an interaction with reporters on Tuesday that taxes should be imposed on farm income aboveacertain threshold to expand the tax base. The Aayog, however, said Debroy´s views were ´personal´ and not those of the Aayog. It also said that taxing farm income is neither the view of the Aayog nor has sucharecommendation been made anywhere in the draft action agenda document, as circulated to the governing council at the meeting on April 23. The council meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attended by almost all chief ministers. “I have read the paragraph in the NITI Aayog report entitled Income Tax On Agriculture Income. To obviate any confusion on the subject, Icategorically state that the central government has no plan to impos

Market watchdog also mandates monitoring agency for cos raising more than Rs 100 crore in IPO The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has taken the first major step towards development of the commodity derivatives market by approving introduction of   options contracts since taking over the market's regulation in September 2015. The Sebi board, which me to n Wednesday , made it mandatory fo r companies raising more than Rs 100 crore through initial public offering (IPO) to appoint a   monitoring agency to keep track of the use of funds and barred Non-resident Indians (NRIs) and entities owned by them from subscribing to participatory notes. “In addition to amendment to the regulation, we also need amendments in the rules, which we will pose it to the government very quickly . I don't want to give   timeframe but this certainly is priority for commodity derivatives market and high priority for us,“ Sebi chairman Ajay Tyagi said during the press conference pos

With the central and state governments laying down the groundwork for the roll-out of the goods and services tax (GST), Karan Choudhury spoke to Krishan Arora,   partner, Grant Thornton India LLP, on how the new indirect tax regime would impact the e-commerce sector. How is the e-commerce industry preparing for the GST roll-out? E-commerce players are getting detailed GST analysis undertaken to assess impacts and changes on various facets including financials, cash flows, working capital, IT   changes, and compliances. Do you think the industry would be looking at restructuring warehouse as there would be no area- specific advantage left ? Currently, warehousing strategies are tax- oriented, which restricts effective utilization of available resources and leads to logistics effeciency. With the GST in   place, there wouldbe uniformity in imposed taxes. Companies may consider restructuring warehouse strategy , keeping in mind business imperatives and not tax. For Example,