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GST Council to meet tomorrow, e-way bill, tax evasion top on agenda The all-powerful GST Council will meet on Saturday to discuss early implementation of e-way bill as well as ways to plug tax evasionThe all-powerful GST Council will meet on Saturday to discuss early implementation of e-way bill as well as ways to plug tax evasion. Headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley, the meeting will be held via video conferencing and deliberate on cementing gaps in the system as well as curbing evasion, sources said.The meeting assumes importance as there has been Rs12,000 crore revenue decline in the goods and services tax (GST) in October over the preceding month and tax evasion is considered one of the reasons for this, they said. This would be the 24th meeting of the Council. The last meeting was held in Guwahati in November where taxes on 178 items were slashed.In an earlier meeting, the Council had decided that e-way bill — an electronic document generated on the GST Network portal

Govt to bear MDR cost for online payments of up to Rs 2,000 In an effort to boost digital payments in India, the government has decided to bear the merchant discount rate (MDR) charges for transactions up to Rs 2,000 made through debit cards, BHIMUPI or Aadhaar Pay for two years. The decision will be effective from January 1, when the Reserve Bank of India´s (RBI´s) revised guidelines on the MDR come into force.The MDR is the rate charged to a merchant by a bank for providing debit and credit card services.It is expressed as a percentage of the transaction amount. The outgo on account of reimbursement for MDR charges is estimated to be Rs 2,512 crore over the next two years.The amount to be reimbursed to banks could be Rs 1,050 crore in FY 2018-19 and Rs 1,462 crore in FY 2019-20 for transactions of value less than Rs 2,000, said the Union government in a press statement. The government has set up a committee to look into the industry cost structure of such transactions, whic

ED to issue FEMA notices in 46 cases The Enforcement Directorate is set to issue fresh notices to more than 45 Indian entities named in the Panama Papers liston charges of possible for exlaw violations, official sources said.The agency, they said, is investigating about 46 “actionable” cases of Indians on this global leaks list for possible violations under the Foreign Exchange Management Act .The central probe agency will soon issue notices to about three dozen entities soon.The agency, one of the members of the multi agency group of investigative agencies on PanamaPapers, will also submit a report of this action to this panel that will subsequently forward a consolidated report for review to the Prime Minister´s Office. The Business Standard, New Delhi, 15th December 2017

Call on GST e-way bill on Saturday Early implementation a possibility in view of slowing tax collectionsAfter reducing tax rates on over 200 items in the last meeting, the goods and services tax (GST) Council is set to meet again on Saturday to discuss early implementation of the electronic way bill, or e-way bill, from January amid slowing revenue collections. If implemented, the move could be a setback to the industry, which has been seeking the e-way bill’s deferment, citing increased compliance burden.The meeting, chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, will take place through video conferencing to discuss the advancement of the e-way bill implementation from April to January to check tax evasion, officials said. Tax collections in October touched their lowest, to Rs 83,000 crore, since the roll-out of the GST on July 1. The e-way bill is a compliance mechanism wherein by way of a digital interface the person causing the movement of goods uploads the relevant information

IBBI issues guidelines for tech standards of info utilities The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has issued guidelines for technical standards to be followed by information utilities, including for consent framework in sharing details with third parties. Information utilities store financial information to help establish defaults and verify claims expeditiously in order to complete transactions under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) in a time-bound manner.The guidelines for technical standards for various core services have been issued, an official release said on Thursday. These include those for registration of users, unique identifier for each record, as well as user, “consent framework for providing access to information to third parties”, and security of the system, as well as information. Besides, guidelines for submission of information, identification and verification of persons, authentication of information, verification of information, data i

Insolvency law committee calls for stakeholder views The Insolvency Law Committee has called for suggestions from stakeholders on the provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code as well as the rules and regulations. The government had constituted the committee on November 16 under the chairmanship of Injeti Srinivas, secretary, corporate affairs ministry, to take stock of functioning and implementation of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. It was also tasked with identifying the issues that might impact the efficiency of resolution and liquidation framework. The committee held its first meeting on December 8 and took a decision to take into account the views of all stakeholders while making recommendations for any changes required in the code.The corporate affairs ministry has asked the stakeholders to share their views on the matter by January 10, 2018. TECHNICAL STANDARDS The technical committee of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) on Thursday laid

Sebi and RBI in talks on giving a boost to interest rate futures With RBI we are re-looking at IRF which is currently seeing less traction, says Sebi chairman Ajay Tyagi The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are in consultations to give a boost to interest rate futures (IRF) which is currently struggling under low volumes, Sebi chairman Ajay Tyagi said on Thursday. “With RBI we are re-looking at IRF which is currently seeing less traction,” Tyagi said at the NSE-NYU conference on Indian Financial Markets in Mumbai.An interest rate future is a financial derivative with an interest bearing instrument such government bonds as the underlying asset. It is used to hedge risks related to interest rate volatility. IRF was relaunched for a third time during its lifetime in January 2014 by exchanges. Even in the third attempt, it has struggled to garner volumes due to limited participation. The average daily volume of IRFs on both NSE and