CA Online

Taxmen slap big penalty to check evasion of GST A fine of 100,000 per cent is something few people would have heard of, or even thought about. A trader in Andhra Pradesh was recently asked to cough up more than that for not paying the goods and service tax. In a show cause notice, an Andhra Pradesh tax officer has asked the said trader to pay Rs 20,000 in fines after he omitted Rs 15 GST in a bill. “It’s clearly established that you wilfully violated the provisions (of GST law)…a punishable offence,” the notice said. This comes about two months after the government had asked almost 200 government officials across the country to go on a shopping spree and identify traders and shopkeepers who were flouting GST norms. ET was the first to report on July 8 that the government has deputed 200 senior IAS, IPS and IRS officers across cities and small towns as sleuths to identify businessmen, wholesalers and retailers violating the norms of GST. It seems these officers have now starte

MCA plans to ease process for starting biz The Ministry of Corporate Affairs plans to simplify the existing processes for setting up a company, according to a public notice. In this regard, the ministry -- which is implementing the Companies Act - has sought views from the stakeholders. The government has already centralised name reservation and incorporation services. There were more than 11.34 lakh active companies at the end of August. The Business Standard, New Delhi, 28th September 2017

Direct tax receipts may be aspoiler for fiscal maths Growth in advance tax collections slowed to 11 per cent in the first half of the financial year, against 14 per centayear ago, posing a challenge to the government´s tax collection target for the year. This may, in turn, disturb the fiscal maths in these difficult times when the economy is in need of additional expenditure. Fiscal consolidation is facing challenges from the non-tax revenue side due to lower than expected receipts from spectrum. Besides, the income declaration scheme is likely to yield only Rs 7,000- 8,000 crore in its third instalment, due by September 30, against Rs 15,000 crore in the first two. Up to 50 per cent of the taxes and penalties were to be paid in the third instalment, but assessees paid more in the first two instalments. Within advance taxes, growth in corporation tax collections also fell, reflecting that India Inc is yet to come out of the woods. Pulled down by the slowing economy, goods and servi

FSSAI training food biz to improve standards of safety TheFood Safetym and Standards Authority of India(FSSAI) has taken up a nation wide training programme to increase the capacity of food businesses towards improving standards of food safety, chief executive Pawan Agarwal has said. The Business Standard, New Delhi, 28th September 2017

GST collections slow down in August About 45% of assessees yet to file returns The government collected RS 90,669 crore goods and services tax (GST) for August, a little lower than the Rs 94,063 crore collected in July. This is also lower than the ~91,000 crore which should have come to the Centre and states in a month, given the Budget Estimates and assumed growth rates in receipts for 2017-18. Only 55 per cent of assessees paid taxes for August, compared to 64 per cent for July. But, the figures should be compared cautiously. About Rs 92,283 crore GST was collected for July till August 29, while Rs 90,669 crore was garnered till September 25. Hence, growth in collections was flat in August, compared to July. As much as Rs 6594,063 crore was paid till August 31. About Rs 14,402 crore came from the Central GST (CGST) in August, against Rs 6514,894 crore in July (paid till August 29);Rs 6521,067 from State GST (SGST), against Rs 6522,722 crore in the previous month; and Rs 47,377 cr

Govt plans 5G network rollout by 2020 The government on Tuesday set up a panel to lay down a roadmap for the rollout of 5G mobile networks in India by 2020 in a move that not only promises to make wireless connections blazingly fast but will also make room for the proliferation of Internetconnected smart devices. 5G wireless networks promise more speed and less latency, can serve a higher density of broadband users and are optimized for the Internet of Things (IoT), which refers to everyday objects becoming intelligent with the ability to send and receive data. “We have created a highlevel 5G committee that will work on the vision, mission and goals of 5G,” telecom minister Manoj Sinha told news agency Press Trust of India. The government’s push to move to 5G is driven by the logic that India, one of the world’s largest markets for telecom services, should not be left behind when the world shifts to 5G. India’s adoption of 4G was delayed earlier this decade. “When the world will ro

Maintain supply of knee implants, govt tells firms The government on tuesday made it manadatory for knee implant manufactures and importers to maintain production and supply of knee implants by invoking an emergency clause under the derug price control law. The department of pharmeuticals (DoP) under the ministry of chemicals and fertilizers invoked powers under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013, to mandate firms to continue the saler iof knee implants without interruption, following the recent price capping on knee impants. DoP, in its order posted on its websitre on Tuesday, directed firms to submit a weekly report on "distributuion and "production"of knee implant systems. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) had in August reduced the average price for knee impant by as mych as 69%.According to notification issued by the price regulator, the most widely used complete knee implant (Cobalt Chromium) now costs Rs 54,720 plus GST, gainst Rs 1.58