CA Online

The government on Friday announced that Aadhaar and e-Aadhaar card could be used as proof of date of birth (DOB) while applying for passports.   In order to streamline, liberalise and ease the process of issue of passport, the ministry has taken a number of steps in the realm of passport policy, expected to benefit the citizens of India applying for a passport, said Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh.   In case of proof of DOB, while filing the application, it has now been decided that all applicants of passports can submit any one of the documents transfer/school leaving/matriculation certificate, PAN card, Aadhaar card/e-Aadhaar having the DOB of applicant, copy of the extract of the service record of the applicant, driving licence, Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) or LIC policy bond.   Birth Certificate issued by the Registrar of Births & Deaths or the Municipal Corporation or any other prescribed authority whosoever has been empowered under the Registration of

The tricky issues of division of administrative turf over assessees between the Centre and states — which can make or break the roll-out of the goods and services tax (GST) on April 1 — was not taken up by the GST Council during its two-day meeting that ended Friday. All other provisions of the draft model GST Bill and compensation Bill were cleared. The next meeting of the Council, on January 3 and 4, will try to resolve the issue of dividing the administrative powers between the Centre and states, but signals given by state governments on Friday suggest that it would be a difficult task.  The meeting will also take up the Integrated GST (IGST) Bill. GST “That leaves us with the very important work of IGST law and cross-empowerment,” Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters after the meeting on Friday. A state finance minister said states were clear there should be no dual control over assessees with up to Rs 1.5 crore annual turnover. This means that states want sole contr

STILL ATTRACTIVE PPF rate may see a marginal cut of 20-25 bps; but it will continue to be one of the best debt instruments for investors, say experts Investors in the Public Provident Fund (PPF) and other small savings schemes should get ready for another rate cut. If the government follows the Gopinath Panel formula that links small savings in-terest rates with government bond yields, the PPF rate could be cut by almost 100 basis points to 7%. According to the Gopinath Panel formula, the interest rates of small savings schemes are slightly higher than the average yield of government bonds of the same maturity in the preceding three months. In case of the PPF , the rate is 25 basis point above the average 10-year government bond yield.The 10-year yield has dropped to 6.5% and has stayed decidedly below the 7% mark throughout the past three months. If the government follows the formula, the PPF rate could fall to almost 7% in the January-March quarter. Analysts feel the government

Barring some clauses, centre and states have agreed upon most of proposed Central GST law The Goods and Services Tax Council on Thursday cleared a substantial part of the central legislation for the proposed tax regime, marking a significant progress towards this reform. The thornier issue of division of tax administration between the centre and states that can possibly delay the implementation of the new tax regime will be taken up on Friday. “A substantial part of the C-GST law barring four to five clauses where we need some more deliberations have been cleared...The council has reached broad consensus on the law,“ a government official said after the first day of the GST Council meeting, not wanting to be named. The C-GST law refers to the central GST law, which will be complemented by state GST laws and an integrated GST law that deals with inter-state delivery of goods and services. The government is keen to roll out the new regime from April 1, 2017, but now the deadl

In future, you may have to prove you have sufficient parking space before being aallowed to buy a car. Urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu told reporters on Thursday that it would be made compulsory for car owners to provide an adequate parking space certificate. “No car or vehicle will be registered without an adequate parking space available certificate. I am very keen on this. I am holding discussions with the surface transport minister and also sensitizing the states. We would be moving in that direction,” Naidu. “In future, it will be mandated. No permission will be given to any construction without a toilet,” Naidu said at the launch of a toilet locator mobile app. Officials in the ministry said to enforce such a decision nationally, amendments will have to be made to the Motor Vehicles Act. Separately, the government in August had introduced the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in the Lok Sabha. The amendments, aimed to increase road safety and compensation,

The Union ministry of consumer affairs, in association with the Bengaluru’s National Law School of India University (NLSIU), will soon inaugurate  Online Consumer Mediation Centre (OCMC). The Centre, which perhaps is the first of kind of such initiative, will initially deal with only cases related to e-commerce companies and will facilitate online and even physical mediation between consumers and companies. The basic purpose of the Centre to encourage consumers and companies to go for pre-litigation and provide them with an option to settle disputes amicably. Officials said the Centre which had been set-up in NLSIU will have eminent lawyers and judges in its panel of mediators. Customers who have duped by e-commerce companies can avail this facility by just filling in an online form and paying the requisite fees. After this, the customers have to provide supporting documents like invoice etc and also explain the type of help that he wants from the Centre. The Centre promise

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, comprising the Union finance minister and state representatives, mainly their finance ministers, cleared most of the draft model GST Bill on Thursday. This leaves mainly the contentious issue of administrative turf between the Centre and states for Friday. Some state finance ministers did not rule out the Centre resorting to voting for resolving the issue of control over assessees under the proposed regime. Beside administrative turf, the Friday meeting will take up the Integrated GST (IGST) and compensation Bills. Agreement over these would be crucial for introducing these in the coming session of Parliament. "The basic model GST Bill has been concluded. Things we have kept aside, such as the issue of cross-empowerment and IGST, will come for discussion tomorrow," Jammu and Kashmir finance minister Haseeb Drabu told reporters after the meeting. He said it was decided earlier as well to go through the entire draft model law fi