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Soon you will able to withdraw your pension using your smartphone Pensioners and members of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) can breathe easy with the state-run pension fund manager planning to develop a mobile application and move a large chunk of its services online. “We are developing an app for pensioners and hope to roll it out by early next year,“ V P Joy , central provident fund commissioner told TOI. The app for pensioners is expected to reduce the enormous amount of paperwork and time taken to process applications. Verification will be done through electronic know your customer (e-KYC) using the Aadhaar number. The organisation has also undertaken a massive effort to upgrade its technology so that subscribers are able to use its services online without any interface with officials at the EPFO. “The idea is that people can access most of our services online and that is where we are headed. Online services will start by early next year,“ he said, adding t

Even as the last date of the income disclosure scheme (IDS) — a governmentprovided opportunity for those holding unaccounted money to come out clean — draws closer, the tax department has sent out mails exhorting people to make the most of it to avoid penal action. The mails were addressed to people who have made large transactions or investments disproportionate to their sources of income, government officials said. The four-month compliance window under the IDS for voluntary disclosure of domestic black money ends on September 30. With just a few days left, the government is anxious to make it a success. The tax department has sourced information on these people as well as their transactions from banks and property registration authorities across the states over the last six years. It reportedly has a list of more than 90 lakh non-PAN transactions. “The letter is not intended to offend anybody. It does not even mention the transaction that led to its issuance. We have just ad

When passing wealth to their children, some parents want to give more to one than to the others. This could be because one son is financially worse off than his siblings, or one has a bigger family to provide for. In many business families, the patriarch hands over the reins of the business to the child he thinks is more capable. But, in doing so, many times parents end up hurting the child they think can do with less. Such arrangements often get challenged in court. There have been many such cases, like a recent one involving a famous business family in Mumbai. The children of the elder son, who severed ties with the family many years earlier, recently claimed a stake in the business alleging that their uncle ( younger son of the patriarch) had been enjoying the family wealth while they had not got what they deserved. One way to deal with such a situation is to form a trust. “ A well- drafted trust deed can minimise the possibility of a dispute. It’s flexible. A head of family c

The advancement of the Union Budget day by a month will make the government richer as tax collections are set to be healthier, according to experts.Economists said that Rs.80,000-Rs.1 lakh crore could get added into the government kitty as budget proposals will get implemented with effect from the first day of the fiscal. For instance, the changes in levies such as service tax made in Budget 2016 came into effect on June 1. From next year such changes will be implemented from April 1.  This way the government will earn service tax revenues for two extra months. “It a very positive move and will bring in certainty once the budget is presented at the beginning of the year,” DK Joshi, chief economist, Crisil said. The government also put an end to the distinction between plan and non-plan expenditure. “Removal of the distinction between plan and non-plan expenditure will simplify and streamline decision-making and help in efficient use of resources,” Chandrajit Banerjee, director general

KEEPING THAT BALANCE Speaking at Incredible India Global Investors' Summit, FM says the more the exemptions, the higher will be the rate A day before the Centre and states sit down to thrash out key issues of the goods and services tax (GST), finance minister Arun Jaitley has cautioned against too many exemptions, warning it will lead to higher rates for others. “More the exemptions, the higher will be the rate... Because when you exempt some people, you charge others a higher rate. For everybody to accept exemptions, actually would end up in a higher rate,“ Jaitley said at the Incredible India Global Investors' Summit while making a larger case against incentives and exemption. “India indefinitely cannot survive and sustain merely on regimes of incentives and exemptions,“ he said. The GST Council, a body of the Centre and states, will meet for the first time on Thursday and Friday to decide on GST rates, exemptions, thresholds at which it will kick in, and other details of th

States want the empowered committee of state finance ministers to continue, though a GST (Goods and Services Tax) Council has been set up to recommend on key areas such as draft model Bills, rates, dual control of central and state officials over assesses. "The states want the empowered committee to function parallel to the GST Council. The empowered committee will help states create consensus on key issues to be taken up by the GST Council," said a government official. The GST Council is headed by the finance minister, while the empowered committee is chaired by a state finance minister. West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra is the current chairman of the empowered panel. Doubts over the existence of the empowered committee arose after the constitution of the GST Council. The committee was set up in 2000 to monitor implementation of uniform floor rates of sales tax by states and Union territories, monitor phasing out of sales tax-based incentive schemes and roll out of va

A day before the GST Council's first meeting, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) on Wednesday came out with an extensive clarifications detailing taxability of e-commerce players and taxi aggregators under the new setup. The 268-page frequently asked questions (FAQ) booklet, released by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, answered 500 questions on 24 topics, including registration, valuation and payment, scope and time of supply, refunds, seizure and arrest. It has also clarified that taxi aggregators, including Ola, will have to register under goods and services tax (GST) and there will be no threshold exemption for them. Similarly, e-commerce players such as Flipkart and Amazon will have to seek registration under the GST regime, irrespective of the value of supply made by them. It also clarified that companies, including Titan, which supply watches and jewels through their own websites, will not be considered as e-commerce operators. “A person providing any information o