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India will on Thursday sign the tough financial information exchange law enacted by the US, which will also give a boost to New Delhi's own attempts to unearth black money stashed away overseas with information inflow beginning as early as October. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) makes it mandatory for all foreign financial institutions to report accounts and financial transaction of US citizens held with them and also accounts of certain foreign entities with substantial US owners. In return, the US will provide India information on investments and financial transactions by its citizens. The US is expected to start sharing information with India from October 1, a senior finance ministry official told ET. FATCA, which came into force on January 1 this year, was enacted by the US in 2010 as part of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act to combat tax evasion by US nationals holding investments in offshore accounts. India couldn't sign the a

...Manual Scrutiny of Service Tax return wef 01.08.2015 guidelines Issued... Primarily, service tax department is bifurcated into anti-evasion and audit wings so as to keep an eye on service tax defaulters. In order to additionally curb the small assessees, who usually don't fall in the ambit of service tax audits, CBEC has issued circular 185/4/2015- ST wherein check-list & revised guidelines for carrying out detailed manual scrutiny of service tax returns have been prescribed. The gist of the same has been produced here under: 1) To be made effective from 1st Aug'15 onwards; 2) Focus on small assessees whose total tax paid(Cash + CENVAT) during FY 14-15 is less than INR 50 Lacs, though on the direction of Chief Commissioner, scrutiny of returns can be made for assessee whose monetary limit exceeds even INR 50 Lacs but in no case such assessee can be subjected to both Audit & manual scrutiny; 3) Preliminary online scrutiny to be done by range officers; 4)

Eighteen states have expressed their inability to complete rollout by September Fearing spurt in prices of food items between July and December due to poor supplies, the Centre has directed all states to take strong action against hoarding and black- marketing of food items, particularly in areas prone to shortages, and start their own price monitoring cells. The states have agreed to adopt a multi- pronged strategy, which includes reviewing the APMC Act for onions, potatoes and tomatoes to free inter- state movement. The food items most vulnerable to price rise are onions, potatoes, tomatoes, pulses, edible oils and rice. “There has been slight increase in prices of pulses due to low production and for which we have decided to import 10,000 tonnes of pulses. Food inflation is under control and all states have assured us that they would take strict action against hoarders and black- marketers,” Paswan later told reporters, after a day- long meeting of state food ministers in pr

The government has set up Customs Clearance and Facilitation Committees at ports to ensure expeditious Customs clearance of goods to improve ease of doing business for traders. Welcoming the move, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations said the move would help in getting faster clearances from different agencies. Business Standard, New Delhi, 8th July 2015

The government plans to table four labour reform bills in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament that are designed to promote industrialization while protecting workers’ rights, labour secretary Shankar Aggarwal said. The four bills are the Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous (Amendment) Bill, Payment of Bonus (Amendment) Bill, Small Factories Bill and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill. “All the amendments are being done keeping in mind three things—need of the times, workers’ protection and creating an environment for more job creation,” Aggarwal said. “Every year, the country needs to create an excess of 10 million  jobs  and for that manufacturing sector is key. The proposed labour reforms will help the pace of industrialization while keeping workers’ rights intact.” Aggarwal said the child labour amendment has already received cabinet approval and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) amendment is likely to be taken to the cabinet by the f

Govt raises threshold from Rs.137 on the basi of average hike in CPI for industrial workers The government has increased minimum wage across the country to Rs.137 Rs.160 a day from with effect from this month. It has raised the threshold after two years on the basis of average increase in the consumer price index for industrial workers during this period. Labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya on Tuesday said he has written to all chief ministers and lieutenant governors to take necessary steps to fix minimum rates of wages in respect of all scheduled employments in states and union territories not below the revised level. “While reviewing the movement of CPI-IW (consumer price index for industrial workers) during s April 2014 to March 2015 over the period April 2012 to March 2013, it was observed that the average CPI IW has risen from 215.17 to 250.83. Ac cordingly , the NFLMW (national floor level minimum wage) has been re vised upwards from existing Rs.160 Rs.137 to per day with e

Deposits up to Rs.1 lakh are insured. Read on for ways to raise this cover Bank fixed deposits are among the safest of savings instruments. The principal and interest are guaranteed and depositors know exactly how much return they can expect at maturity. But, what if the bank goes bankrupt? Or it merged with another bank? What happens to your deposits in that case? The latest Financial Stability Report ( FSR) of the Reserve Bank of India raises concerns about the soundness of public sector banks due to their high level of non- performing assets ( NPAs). “The decline in their ( PSBs’) soundness ( measured in terms of CRAR, the capital to risk weighted assets ratio) by 1.8 percentage points between March 2011 and March 2015 was the ( highest), followed by foreign banks at 1.5 percentage points and PVBs ( private banks) at 1.1 percentage points,” the report said. The level of stressed assets was highest for PSBs at 13.5 per cent of total advances as of this March, while the net NP