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The income tax (I-T) department has asked all sub-registrars and tehsildars under its jurisdiction in Mumbai to send it details of property deals worth Rs 1 crore or more in the past 10 years. This is aimed at nabbing those who stash unaccounted money in benami property. The letters from the I-T department, seeking information of property registrations between April 2007 and June 2017, were issued under Section 21(1) of the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988. The Central Board of Direct Taxes altered this law significantly through a notification on October 25 last year. According to estimates of experts dealing in property registrations in Mumbai, there would be at least 500,000 agreements worth Rs 1 crore or more from the past 10 years. “Without doubt one of the primary destinations for unaccounted money is real estate. Almost all of it is held in benami properties," said Dinesh Kanabar, chief executive officer, Dhruva Advisors LLP He added the efforts of

The National Capital Region (NCR), one of the biggest markets in the country, spanning three states — Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh — typifies the challenges for  businesses that register under the composition levy scheme. Applicable to certain categories of small taxpayers — traders, restaurants, and manufacturers/ suppliers — whose annual turnover does not exceed Rs 75 lakh ( Rs 50 lakh for  certain states), the objective of the scheme is to make the new indirect tax regime simple with reduced compliance. The tax rates range from 1 per cent for traders, 2  per cent for manufacturers, and 5 per cent for restaurant services. Under the scheme the taxpayer is required to file one return in each quarter. However, attached to the scheme are riders that have stumped businesses. Any business that makes interstate supply is outside the ambit of the scheme. For instance,  small businesses operating in the NCR face the brunt of this condition because their supplies often cross state bor

The new indirect tax regime is having an effect akin to setting a cat among pigeons for micro and small businesses across the country. This is largely due to a  provision for collecting and paying tax on behalf of unregistered vendors and suppliers, under what is termed the reverse charge mechanism (RCM). A concept borrowed from the service tax, the RCM also now applies to supply of goods. However, higher compliance cost, including a larger working capital requirement,  is causing a shake-out in the procurement chain of businesses. The smaller ones, operating largely in the unorganised space, are losing. Consider: Large companies in  the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) space have started pruning their vendor list for sourcing products and services, weeding out small suppliers which are yet to  register under the goods and services tax (GST). The remaining ones — barely 10 per cent of their vendor universe — have been put on notice. In the textile hub of Tirupur in Tamil Nadu,

The Centre has urged Jammu and Kashmir to implement the goods and services tax from July 1 to ensure that consumers and industry in the State are not put at a  disadvantage. In a letter to Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that non-implementation of the new levy from July 1 will  have an “adverse impact” and lead to a general increase in the prices of goods that are purchased from other States as well as in the prices of all goods being sold  from Jammu and Kashmir. “GST is a destination-based tax… if the State of Jammu and Kashmir does not join GST on July 1, dealers shall not be able to take credit of the Integrated GST for all  purchases. This shall get embedded into the prices of purchased goods or services, leading to cascading of tax and increase in prices of the said goods or services for  the final consumers in Jammu and Kashmir,” Jaitley said, according to a release by the Finance Ministry on Monday. All Sta

Businesses can start uploading their sale and purchase invoices generated post July 1 on the GSTN portal from July 24, a top company official said today. The Goods and Services Tax has kicked in from July 1 and so far, the GST Network, the company handling the IT backbone for new tax regime, has been facilitating registration of businesses. "We plan to launch the invoice upload utility on the portal on July 24 so that businesses can come forward and start uploading the invoices on a daily or weekly basis to avoid month-end rush," GSTN Chairman Navin Kumar told PTI. Generating invoices for dealings above Rs 200 and keeping invoice records in serial number even if maintained manually, are pre-requisites for claiming input tax credit under the GST regime. The GSTN had last month launched an offline Excel format for businesses to keep their invoice records and from July 24 this Excel sheet can be uploaded on the portal. Kumar said GSTN would put up a video on its portal to as

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