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As if the mental harassment of delayed delivery of a house is not bad enough, you could also be losing 85% of the tax benefit on your home loan, for no fault of yours.A tax deduction of Rs 2 lakh per year is allowed against payment of interest on home lo ans, if the house is acquired within three years of taking the loan. In case the possession happens after three years, the permissible deduction falls to just Rs 30,000 a year -a reduction of 85%. In the past couple of years, most home deliveries have been delayed beyond three years from time of purchase, making the buyers ineligible for the tax deduction—a fact they would have not known at the time of taking the home loan. Given the stress in the real estate sector, most builders are now committing deliveries after four years of booking, so home buyers lose out on a big chunk of the potential tax deduction. For people in the top inco me tax bracket of 30% (annual taxable income of Rs 5 lakh or more) the benefit resulting from this pr

The wait for entry of new participants and instruments on the commodity futures market is likely to get longer. At an event here, P K Bindish, chief general manger at the regulatory body, the Securities and Exchange Board of India ( Sebi), said: “ We want the commodity futures market to bring risk management at par with the equity market before allowing new instruments and a new set of participants for hedging on commexes.” This implies Sebi might not allow instruments like options and indices to trade on a commodity exchange till these mitigation facilities are in place. While the commexes claim to already have a strong risk management system already in place, the recent suspension of castor seed futures by the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange ( NCDEX) has restirred the issue. And, before the castor issue, NCDEX had to impose nearly a 100 per cent margin in chana ( chickpea) trade. Sebi chairman U K Sinha had said last September at the time of absorbing the erstwhile

RBI/2015-16/315 DBR.BP.BC.No.76/21.07.001/2015-16 February 11, 2016 All Scheduled Commercial Banks (excluding Regional Rural Banks) Madam / Dear Sir, Implementation of Indian Accounting Standards (Ind AS) The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Government of India has notified the Companies (Indian Accounting Standards) Rules, 2015 on February 16, 2015. A reference is also invited to the Press Release dated January 18, 2016 issued by the MCA outlining the roadmap for implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) converged Indian Accounting Standards for banks, non-banking financial companies, select All India Term Lending and Refinancing Institutions and insurance entities. 2. In this connection, it is advised that scheduled commercial banks (excluding RRBs) shall follow the Indian Accounting Standards as notified under the Companies (Indian Accounting Standards) Rules, 2015, subject to any guideline or direction issued by the Reserve Bank in this

Updates Of the Day 1.Banks shall comply with the Indian Accounting Standards (Ind AS) for financial statements for accounting periods beginning from April 1, 2018 onwards, with comparatives for the periods ending March 31, 2018 or thereafter. RBI/2015-16/315 DBR.BP.BC.No.76/21.07.001/2015-16 2.RBI extends the Date for withdrawal of Pre-2005 series banknotes to June 30, 2016. 3.Expense on gifts to doctors allowed being not prohibited in law, CBDT circular only applicable A.Y. 2013-14 onwards [Syncom Formulations (I) Ltd. vs. DCIT (ITAT Mumbai), ITA No.6429 & 6428 /Mum/2012 & ITA No.11/Mum/2012, AY 2010-11 & 2011-12] 4.Assessment completed by AO relying on estimations cannot be remanded back by CIT to reverify some aspects of estimation relied on.[Sri Surakshitha Homes vs. ITO (ITAT Hyderabad), IT Appeal No.-784/2013] 5.No Penalty for non disclosure of manner of income, if same was not asked during statement recorded u/s/ 132(4).[DCIT vs. Shri Rajiv Chopra (ITAT Chandi

 The finance ministry said on Wednesday that tax collections stood at Rs.10.7 lakh crore in the first 10 months of FY16. This constituted 73.5 per cent of the Budget estimates ( BE) of Rs.14.5 lakh crore. According to the ministry, direct tax collections might fall short of the Budget target of about Rs.8 lakh crore in FY16 but it would be offset by robust indirect tax collections. As such, direct tax collections might have alower figure in the revised estimates of 2015- 16, compared to BE, while the indirect tax mop- up would have ahigher figure than BE of Rs.6.5 lakh crore. The ministry hoped it would meet tax collections target in FY16. Amid critics doubting the latest gross domestic product ( GDP) numbers, which showed the economy growing 7.6 per cent in FY16, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said the latest tax figures supported the GDP data. On the first upload on YouTube by the finance ministry, Adhia said direct tax collections were up 10.9 per cent at Rs.5.2 lakh crore till Ja

HELPFUL MODE Move may translate into double-digit returns for subscribers; earlier the ministry was planning to hike interest rate to 8.95% The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation is considering doling out a Rs 750 crore bonus to its subscribers for 2015-16 instead of raising the interest rate, a first of its kind move that could translate into double-digit returns for crores of workers on their retirement funds. EPFO had earlier proposed raising the interest rate to 8.95% in the current fiscal year, compared with 8.75% in 2013-15 and 2014-15, based on its earnings estimate for the year. The proposal had met with some resistance from the finance ministry as it would put pressure on it to raise interest rates on small savings schemes and would not be sustainable go ing forward. Therefore, the retirement fund body that manages the savings of more than 5 crore organized sector workers is considering a onetime bonus payment. “We are considering the option of bonus for the first tim

FALL YEAR Indian unit has given a negative return of 1.71% since Jan 1, analysts don't rule out further weakness The rupee seems to have lost some steam, that is, if you go by data on total investment returns, or even on the basis of pure fundamentals. Unlike the previous year, the Indian currency has clearly lost the top slot among emerging markets so far in 2016, as concerns over growth push investors to park their money in safer places, like the US. The local unit is now one of the three worst performing EM currencies, yielding a negative return of 1.71% against 2-5% positive returns by the Malaysian Ringgit, Indonesian Rupiah, Thai Bhat and the Brazilian Real, show data from Bloomberg. “The rupee has underperformed some of its emerging markets peers in 2016, but over a longer horizon (2014 or 2015), it had remained comparatively much stronger,“ said Saugata Bhattacharya, chief economist at Axis Bank. “This needs to be balanced with incentivising capital inflows, since the curr