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Provisional duty on certain steel products to be valid for 200 days as domestic players cry foul over rising inflows from China, Japan & Korea Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday announced the government's decision to impose a 20% safeguard duty on steel imports with immediate effect. The duty on specific steel products will be valid for 200 days.This is perhaps the first time in nearly two decades that the government is taking a series of moves to “protect“ the domestic steel industry since it was liberalised in the early 90s. “A provisional duty of 20% on certain steel products has been introduced with effect from today and it will continue for 200 days,“ the finance minister told reporters in New Delhi. The government has reacted with remarkable speed in response to an application from domestic steel producers in June.Earlier a government panel comprising commerce, steel and revenue secretaries approved imposition of 20% safeguard duty on imports of specific stee

Brokers of commodity exchanges are set to start registrations with new regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India ( Sebi), after September 28, the date of the merger of Forward Markets Commission ( FMC) and Sebi. After September 28, trading on commodity exchanges would continue as usual. But, commodity brokers would have to create a separate entity under their broking firm till registration is complete. Meanwhile, Sebi had announced on September 8 that it had changed rules to allow the functioning of the commodities derivatives market and its brokers. Under the new norms, a regional commodity derivatives exchange would pay Sebi an annual regulatory fee of Rs.50,000 within 30 days of the end of the financial year. For national commodity derivatives exchanges, the net worth for a self- clearing member would be Rs.1 crore, and for a clearing member, Rs.3 crore. Business Standard, New Delhi, 15th Sept. 2015

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday assured global investors of the " fairest and predictable taxation regime". He invited them to invest in sectors including infrastructure, manufacturing and defence. He was optimistic annual India- US trade will surge five times to $ 500 billion in the next few years. He was at the 11th Indo- US Economic Summit. Business Standard, New Delhi, 15th Sept. 2015

Valuation of goods for Customs duty should be done only at the time and place of importation and it should not be based on the bill of lading but on goods arriving in India. The Supreme Court rejected the argument of the Commissioner of Customs that the quantity mentioned in the bill of lading should be the basis of payment of duty, not the quantity actually received in this country. The Customs appellate tribunal had upheld the view of the Customs authorities, but the Supreme Court said that the tribunal had “ lost sight of the first principles”. It stated in its judgment, in Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals vs Commissioner of Customs, that the tribunal was wrong in holding that a levy in the context of import duty can only be on imported goods, that is, on goods brought into India from a place outside of India. Till that is done, there is no charge to tax. Explaining the law further, the judgment stated that the taxable event in the case of imported goods is “ import”. The tax

In what could be a good news for hundreds of thousands of taxpayers, the income tax department will process and send refunds in 7- 10 days as its latest technology upgrade of electronic and Aadhaar- based ITR verification has begun on a successful note. The departments latest initiative to verify an income tax return ( ITR) by Aadhaar or other bank database has received apositive response from ITR filers because of which the taxman, for Assessment Year 2015- 16, was able to process and send the refunds to bank accounts of eligible taxpayers in less than 15 days. "The days are gone when getting an I-T refund used to take months or in some cases even a few years. The new electronic verification e-filing system has proved to be very customer-friendly and as a token of thanks to the taxpayers, the department is working to ensure their refunds are sent in a week's time or a maximum of ten days. Business Standard, New Delhi, 14th sept. 2015

SBI Life, ICICI Prudential Life and HDFC Life could lead the way The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India ( Irdai) will make it mandatory for large life insurance companies to list within a specific period. So far, none of them, barring one, has shown interest in going to public, even after completing 10 years of operations. According to sources familiar with the developments, privatesector life insurance companies with assets under management ( AUMs) of more than Rs.60,000 crore will be the first ones that will have to list. The three largest insurance companies at present are SBI Life Insurance, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and HDFC Life. Only HDFC Life has so far shown any inclination to list. As on March 31, 2015, SBI Life had a total AUMof Rs.71,339 crore, HDFC Life had Rs.67,000 crore, and ICICI Prudential Life had Rs.1,00,183 crore. According to Irdai norms, a company has to be in the insurance business for 10 years to be eligible to list on the e

Trade unions say the proposed reforms are pro-corporate and the govt is taking a unilateral approach towards it Within days of Prime Minister Narendra Modi assuring business leaders that the government will create enabling environment for investment, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has asked the labour ministry to step on the reforms paddle. Officials of the labour ministry met those of the PMO on Friday , and then a day later they met the top brass of NITI Aayog, the government's policy think tank, to lay down the strategy for action. While the planned labour reform may bring cheer to industrialists and investors, it is unlikely to go down well with trade unions, which earlier this month went on a nationwide strike saying the measures will endanger jobs and make lay-offs easy . A senior government official told ET that the labour ministry made an informal presentation to top offices of the government to convey the reforms undertaken by the ministry and the way for ward