CA Online

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday relaxed the per day cash withdrawal limit from automated teller machines (ATM) to Rs 10,000 per card, from Rs 4,500 currently. The weekly limit, however, remains unchanged at Rs 24,000. Current account holders can now withdraw up to Rs 1 lakh per week. Earlier, they were allowed to withdraw only up to Rs 50,000. This facility has been extended to overdraft and cash credit accounts as well.  RBI had imposed these limits in November after the government banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. The withdrawal limits are unlikely to be removed completely till RBI supplied the economy with sufficient amount of new notes, analysts said. The daily withdrawal limit has been changed a number of times earlier. On November 8 — the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the note ban — the central bank restricted daily withdrawal to Rs 2,000. It was increased to Rs 4,500 a few days later. This was quickly rolled back to Rs 2,000; then increased to R

Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today indicated that start-ups may get additional tax benefits in the forthcoming budget, to be unveiled on February 1. The ministry has already suggested the finance ministry to consider raising tax holiday for start-ups to 7 years from the current 3 years to encourage budding entrepreneurs. Business Standard New Delhi,17th January 2017

Days after government ordered seeking PAN details of all account holders, banks have started asking their customers, including KYC-compliant ones, to update their PAN details by February 28. Business Standard New Delhi,17th January 2017

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council on Monday broke a deadlock over issues of administrative control over assessees and broadly agreed to roll out the GST from July 1, instead of the earlier deadline of April 1. Whether a state or the Centre will assess an entity would be decided by a computer programme. The Council also resolved a logjam over the right to tax economic activities within 12 nautical miles from India’s coasts. Against the earlier proposals of reserving administration of assessees up to Rs 1.5 crore in annual turnover for states, or of allowing both the Centre and states to jointly administer these, the Council decided to blend the two suggestions. The entire tax base would be shared between the Centre and states in a predetermined ratio, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, the chairman of the Council, said at a press conference after the meeting. The Centre agreed the states would have the powers to administer 90 per cent of assessees with an annual turn

A fortnight ahead of the start of the Budget session of Parliament, the goods and services tax (GST) Council will on Monday try to find the resolution to issue of administrative turf between the Centre and states, as well as definition of coastal states. Sources said shortage of time due to the coming elections in five states could come in the way of finding an early solution. Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu hoped a solution to both issues might be found out at the meeting. He will not attend the meeting but will send an officer to represent the state as he is going to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos. Uttarakhand’s Indira Hridayesh told Business Standard some solution to the administrative turf issue has to be found in consensus to implement the GST. But the Centre is not agreeing to states’ demand to give them sole control over assessees up to Rs.1.5 crore of annual turnover. It is almost clear that GST would not be introduced from April 1. Indust

From April 2016, companies with a net worth of Rs.500 crore and above began re-stating their accounting numbers in IFRS-compliant Indian Accounting Standards (Ind-AS). This will be mandatorily extended to companies with a net worth greater than Rs.250 crore from April 2017. Ind-AS is largely based on fair-value accounting. This involves accounting for various benefits or costs that are unrealised or notional, leading to taxation on a notional basis. “Based on the Ind-AS conversion guidelines, companies will need to undertake a one-time adjustment of various accounting treatments in opening retained earnings,” says Nabin Ballodia, partner, tax, KPMG in India. The transition to Ind-AS provides certain options to corporates that could increase or decrease the retained earnings based on the choices made. “In general, this will increase the retained earnings of corporates because Ind-AS relies on the fair valuation concept whereas corporates have traditionally followed the historical

Your organisation might reject the Leave Travel Allowance (LTA) claim, if you had travelled on official holidays, like on a weekend, from this year. The Income-Tax (I-T) Act says the employee needs to be “on leave to be in any other place in India”. “Organisations which go strictly by the wordings of the I-T Act, allow employees to claim LTA only if they had applied for leaves,” says Alok Agrawal, senior director, Deloitte Haskins & Sells. The salaried class are likely to come under more scrutiny from employers this year. And, all perks like LTA, house rent allowance and interest paid on home loans will come under this heightened scrutiny. The government has made employers responsible for verifying whether the claims filed are according to the law. Earlier, companies went only by self-declaration of employees. The regulations were changed to counter the Supreme Court’s ruling that employers are under no statutory obligation to collect bills and details to prove the employees ha