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Raj Kumar Kohli, 61, a Delhibased government servant, has purchased multiple insurance policies over his lifetime. For some of his policies he still gets communications from the insurer, and he has managed to keep track of those. But, he suspects that he could have lost track of a few policies that he had purchased decades ago, and whose policy documents he has misplaced. Help is now at hand for policyholders like Kohli. From October 1, opening an e-insurance account has become compulsory for buyers of new policies. The insurer whom you are buying the policy from will facilitate the process of opening this account. Existing policyholders will have to initiate the process themselves. One advantage of opening this account will be convenience. After fulfilling KYC (know your customer) requirements, you will be able to store multiple insurance policies across segments at one place. Retrieving the policy at the time of lodging a claim will become easier. “Today, more than ~5,000 cro

Foreign investors are facing compliance difficulties in moving from the foreign institutional investor (FII) to foreign portfolio investor (FPI) regime. The deadline to obtain an FPI licence ends in March 2017. Existing FIIs are required to submit documents and undertakings to obtain the licence. Also, there are issues regarding taxation under the new regime, say industry experts. These are forcing certain FPIs to rethink about remaining invested in India, experts add. “There are many inconsistencies yet and they (government) haven’t clarified issues that need to be addressed,” said Shardul Shroff, executive chairman, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas. Foreign investors are finding it difficult to complete the paperwork, which includes submitting constitutional documents, identity proofs, among others. The lengthy process of certification of original papers and the frequency of accepting documents by the Indian authorities is said to be asource of discomfort for foreign investors. Legal ex

The commerce ministry on Thursday said the website www.copyright.in does not represent the copyright registration office of India. It was inviting applications for protection of various worksliterary, artistic, dramatic, musical, sound recordings - the ministry said. Business Standard New Delhi,07th October 2016

The Controller General of Accounts has instructed its officials to examine if revised salaries of government employees are in line with the award of the Seventh Pay Commission and recover any excess amount paid. The government has paid about Rs.56,000 crore as wage arrears. Business Standard New Delhi,07th October 2016

The automobile industry’s apex body,Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam), has sought a standard tax rate for small car sand multiutility vehicles(MUVs)incoming national goods and services tax(GST),while pressing for an additional eight percent tax on other cars. It has also suggested a minimumre laxation of eight per cent in taxes on electric/hybridoral ternatefuel cars.And,a standard rate on two-wheelers,three-wheelers and commercial vehicles.“For along time,there were only two rates of excise duties on passenger cars. In recent years,the bigger car rates have got fragmented and, today, we have four rates for passenger cars, excluding electric vehicles and hybrid electrics,for which lower rates are applicable. There is a need to look at the GST rate for automobiles sensitively,”Siamsaid. Currently, a small car attracts 12.5 percent excise duty. This should have a length of less than four metres and an engine capacity of less than 1,200cc for petrolorless than1,500

The honest and diligent taxpayer must be appreciated and encouraged — this is the new mantra of the NDA government. And the Central Board of Direct Tax (CDBT), has been entrusted the job of sending out certificates of honour to individuals who pay above Rs.1 lakh income tax. CBDT has already mailed over 800,000 such certificates since the initiative was launched less than two weeks ago. An official source said that the department has been asked to undertake the exercise on priority. So many more such certificates will be sent out in the coming days. According to government data, only 1 million taxpayers declare incomes over Rs.10 lakh, below which the tax rate is 20%. This is only 2% of the total taxpayers in the country. This will be an annual affair. “The tax department is not there to harass the citizens..while it is firm, it is not going to take any step to harass citizens,” Hasmukh Adhia, revenue secretary told HT. “We want tax payers to be made part of the nation building p

After much dilly-dallying, the finance ministry on Wednesday said it will take away from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) the powers to manage public debt or government borrowings in about two years and has set up a cell for an interim period to smoothen the transition so that markets do not witness disruptions. The move is in line with steps announced by the government recently such as inflation targeting and setting up of Monetary Policy Committee to streamline the functioning of RBI. The Public Debt Management Cell (PDMC), to be housed at RBIs Delhi office, will be upgraded to a statutory Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA) in "about two years", the ministry said in a circular. PDMC would have only advisory functions to avoid conflict with statutory functions of RBI, the circular said. The cell has been tasked with planning government borrowings, including market and other borrowings, like sovereign gold bond issuance. Other functions of PDMC are managing governm