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The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has made it easier for retail investors to move their money between shares and commodities, like gold and oil.The regulator last week issued an amendment to regulations that concern brokers and sub-brokers, allowing anyone registered to trade in shares to also trade in commodities, and vice-versa, without cumbersome paperwork, a second verification process, and through an alternate account. "In the future, if a customer wants to switch asset classes, it can be done on a single click without irritants of paperwork that may earlier have pushed the customer to stick to just a single asset class,” said Lalit Thakkar, director at Angel Broking. Large broking houses like Angel Broking, Edelweiss and Motilal Oswal have separate subsidiaries that trade in commodities. Each time an investor wants to move from shares to commodities, cheques and permissions to move money from one unit to another are required. For such firms, the effort

With less than a week to go for the new indirect tax regime to kick in, small businesses are trying to understand the modalities of the goods and services tax (GST) as the compliance burden for them is set to significantly rise. Making a relaxation for small businesses, rules allow those with an annual turnover between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 75 lakh (or up to Rs 50 lakh for hilly States) to opt for the composition scheme and file returns every quarter, the bigger challenges seems to be automating their systems and installing at least one computer for making and uploading invoices. “I run a small grocery store and though my turnover is over Rs 20 lakh, I don’t know whether to run my shop or work out the computer system,” said Mahender Nath, the owner of a mom-and pop store in New Delhi. Analysts say that the problem is bigger in tier 2 and 3 towns where connectivity and the use of computers is considered a big challenge. “I recently met a client from Siwan (Bihar) who has a cemen

Some common mistakes made by businesses while filing invoices. Experts suggest the way forward MUST DO Ensure that different types of invoices (tax invoice, bill of supply, receipt voucher, refund voucher, self-invoice, payment voucher, debit note, credit note & delivery challan) have different consecutive serial numbers Such invoice numbers should not exceed 16 digits, including special characters such as / and - If advance received for service/goods is refunded later, assessee has to issue refund voucher. Tax paid earlier can be claimed by way of refund. However, no adjustments can be made in return Mention the place of supply carefully. Any default or incorrect determination of place of supply can lead to payment of tax at the wrong place. Assessee would then have to pay tax in the correct place and go for refund of tax paid erroneously Ensure that correct classification of goods and service is done. Any change of rate would have a huge impact on future cash flow

A fortnight into the GST, small and medium dealers, and manufacturers are grappling with issues of the new indirect taxation regime. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will chair the 19th meeting of the GST Council on Monday, via video conference. This would be the first meeting after the implementation. The meeting would reportedly discuss tweaking of rates on some products, besides taking stock of the rollout of the new indirect tax system. The spread was 1.9 percentage point at the end of FY16 and 4.8 percentage points at beginning of the current rally in March 2013. The spread was 1.5 percentage point at the end of March 2008. The earnings yield is the potential yield for an equity investor if the company pays 100 per cent of its current (annual) net profit as equity dividend. Simply put, it is net profit divided by the market capitalisation of a company. Typically, the earnings yield on equities should be sufficiently higher than the yield on riskfree assets (such a

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday told the Gujarat High Court (HC) that there was no supporting document to its June 13 press release, directing banks to  initiate insolvency proceedings against 12 non-performing assets (NPAs), including Essar Steel. The submission was made during the hearing of Essar Steel’s petition, filed on July 4, against insolvency proceedings initiated against it at the National Company Law  Tribunal (NCLT) by the State Bank of India (SBI)-led 22 banks’ consortium as well as the Standard Chartered Bank (SCB). The single-judge Bench of Gujarat HC has reserved its judgment for Monday. On Thursday, it had asked the RBI to present any documents other than the press release that  supported its June 13 circular. The RBI counsel on Friday told the court that the press release was issued after a high-level committee meeting of the RBI decided to  issue the directive. Essar Steel, in its petition, has challenged the RBI’s directive as “arbitrary” and an

India is considering tracking digital currencies like bitcoin through the central bank and  capital markets regulator along with intelligence agencies to monitor money laundering and  terrorist financing, people in the know said. A federal government panel is examining options  such as banning, regulating or limited intervention for virtual currencies in India, said the  people who sought anonymity as the talks are not public. The Mint , New delhi, 15th July 2017

The Delhi High Court has directed the Centre not to take any coercive steps against lawyers and  law firms for not registering or comp lying with the Central Goods and Services Tax Act,  Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, or the Delhi Goods and Services Tax Act, till a  clarification is issued by the governments concerned. The Bench asked the Centre to clarify  whether the services of lawyers and law firms came under the GST. The Business Standard, New Delhi, 15th July 2017