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Retirement fund manager EPFO has reduced the stipulated period for settlement of various claims such PF withdrawal, pension and insurance to 10 days from 20 at present. In July 2015, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) had reduced the timeline for settling various claims to 20 day to improve the service delivery for its over four crore subscribers. The body has launched the online claim settlement facility on May 1, 2017. It has planned to eventually settle claims of all Aadhaar and bank account seeded EPF accounts within three hours of receipt of an application. "The timeline in case of claim settlements is 10 days and 15 days in case of grievance redressal management," an EPFO statement said. These are new provisions in the EPFO's Citizens' Charter 2017 launched in Bangalore on Tuesday by Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya. It said the Charter is an attempt to bring transparency and accountability on the part of EPFO and make service delivery s

The government´s to demonetise Rs 500  Rs 1,000 notes has the authorities bring 9.1 people under the tax money has lost its anonymity, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Tuesday.This is roughly one fourth of 37 million individuals who filed tax returns in 2015-16. Launching a new website on ´Operation Clean Money´,a programme to bring illegal wealth on the books, Jaitley said demonetisation givenapush towards and led to an increase in the number of assessees and tax revenues.November 8 announcement had also instilled fear people about dealing he said. “One message has gone out clearly as per the steps taken by the CBDT post demonetisation —it is no longer safe to deal with excessive cash and tax evaded money ... It is absolutely clear that those who have been indulging in all these are no longer safe,” Jaitley said. Post demonetisation, there had been a hike in collection of personal income tax, the finance minister said, adding that the new portal would help honest tax payer

The Centre and states to charge only 0.5% each; e-commerce marketplaces to collect levy The Centre and states are likely to each impose a 0.5 per cent tax collected at source on sellers of products on ecommerce websites such as Flipkart and Amazon under the goods and services tax (GST) regime. This proposal would be taken up at the two-day meeting of the GST Council, starting Thursday in Srinagar. The tax will be collected by the e-commerce market places: They will deduct 1 per cent while paying the sellers. E-commerce players had earlier opposed a provision in the GST law to impose a 2 per cent tax — 1 per cent by the Centre and states each — deducted at source. The new indirect tax regime is expected to be rolled out on July 1. “The tax collected at source will only help trace who is doing the transaction through an e-commerce portal. It is a measure to make such portals accountable,” said a senior government official, adding the tax could also be zero but states were not in favo

If you splurged on something really expensive or made an enormous investment recently, rest assured your accounts won’t be opened up for scrutiny by the income tax department as long as these can be squared with your declared income. “Scrutiny will be based on specific information,” a senior income tax official told ET. In other words, big transactions will no longer automatically qualify a person for scrutiny. The income tax department will only start asking questions if it has  clear information that calls for an investigation, sparing honest taxpayers. This was the outcome of a high-level meeting held by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) last week to review the conditions for scrutiny. Such cases are currently picked up through computer-based criteria related to transactions above a certain ceiling. This idea is to ensure that regular taxpayers such as salaried employees don’t face unnecessary hassle and to allow tax authorities to focus their energies on high-risk indivi

Tax officials and industry experts will discuss new tax accounting standards for infrastructure companies in July, a person aware of the matter said. The new standards are expected to reduce the discretion these companies use in deciding how and when they recognize revenue from their projects. Officials representing the income-tax department, accounting body the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and outside experts will discuss the norms and subsequently seek comments from public, the person mentioned above said on condition of anonymity. The proposed Income Computation and Disclosure Standards (ICDS) for ‘build, operate and transfer’ (BOT) projects will force many companies to recognize revenue earlier and pay tax earlier as well. Given the rebound in highway development and expected investments in the infrastructure sector, this could result in an immediate boost to tax receipts. However, ICDS will only curtail the flexibility of developers to defer taxes, and no

The Federation of All India Farmer Associations (FAIFA) on Monday asked the government to haveataxation policy that disincentivises cigarette smuggling in India, ahead of a crucial meeting of the goods and services (GST) Council later this week. The FAIFA,a non-profit organisation representing farmers across states such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Gujarat, said cigarette smuggling has hit tobacco farmers supplying to legitimate manufacturers in India.It urged Finance Minister Arun Jaitley “to protect the interests of Indian FCV (FlueCured Virginia) tobacco farmers through balanced and uniform taxation under GST”. “We appeal to the government to haveataxation policy that disincentivises cigarette smuggling in India,” FAIFA General Secretary Murali Babu said in a statement. He further said GST is an opportunity for the government to ensure illicit trade is eradicated from the country by removing distortions and address tobacco taxation in India.It will bring back lo

The government has asked all companies to disclose shares and bond transactions involving Rs 10 lakh or more in a financial year to Income Tax department by May 31. Besides, a listed company purchasing its own securities for a specified amount from investors will have to furnish the information to the tax department, Corporate Affairs Ministry said in a notice. A company issuing shares, bonds or debentures aggregating to Rs 10 lakh or more in a financial year to any person will have to make the disclosure online regarding such transactions to the Income-Tax department on or before May 31, 2017. "Buy back of shares from any person (other than shares bought in the open market) for an amount or value aggregating to Rs 10 lakh or more in a financial year," will also come under this disclosure. Further, the government is in the process of cancelling the registration of more than two lakh companies that have not been carrying out business for a considerable period of time, amid