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I-T department seizes Rs4 crore in drive against cash hoarders   New Delhi: In a drive against cash hoarders, the income tax (I-T) department has seized currency worth Rs4 crore from people in states, including Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, which have reported cash shortages. The drive is part of the tax department’s efforts to track down currency hoarders suspected of gaming the formal banking system to mobilize currency for making unaccounted payments. The search operations were conducted over the last few days, said a government official who did not wish to be identified. The Mint, New Delhi, 20th April 2018 ---------------

Govt to continue talks with RBI on easing non-performing asset norms Officials said the Prime Minister's Office and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had been apprised of the matter A day after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor N S Vishwanathan ruled out easing new norms for non-performing asset (NPA) resolution, the government doubled down on its stance that a strict application of these norms could send too many cases to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and clog the insolvency pipeline. Business Standard has learnt from senior government sources that the finance ministry will initiate a fresh round of communication with the RBI once Governor Urjit Patel returns to India. Patel, along with Deputy Governor Viral Acharya, is in Washington, DC for the World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring meeting, which is slated to end on April 22. Officials also said the Prime Minister’s Office and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had been apprised of the matter. A so

  Wrong info in ITR will be reported to employers: I-T to salaried class The tax filing season for salaried class taxpayers has just begun with the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), that frames policy for the department, recently notifying the new ITRs The Income Tax Department on Wednesday cautioned salaried class taxpayers against using illegal means like under-reporting of income or "inflating" deductions while filing their returns, stating violators will be prosecuted and their employers will be intimated to take action against them. The Central Processing Centre (CPC) of the department in Bengaluru, that receives and processes the Income Tax Returns (ITRs), has issued an advisory specifying such taxpayers should not "fall prey" to unscrupulous tax advisors or planners who help them in preparing wrong claims to get tax benefits. Calling it a "cautionary advisory" on reports of tax evasion by under-reporting of income or inflating deductio

RBI firm on new NPA rules, says cos should not take loan contract casually The deputy governor said even some highly rated borrowers had failed on the one-day default norm Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor N S Vishwanathan strongly defended its new rules on debt resolution, including the one-day default norm, stating that banks should get into action before any such default takes place and that companies should not take the covenants of a loan contract casually.  “The debt contract embedded in bank loans has been continuously losing its sanctity, especially where the borrowing is large. There is a need to change this and restore sanctity of the debt contract, lest bank debt becomes subordinate even to equity,” said Vishwanathan at the National Institute of Bank Management, Pune. The new framework aimed to restore the sanctity of such debt contracts, he stressed. The speech addressed several issues raised by bankers and some government officials. It indicated the RBI

  Supreme Court says biometric authentication of Aadhaar prone to misuse If a person is unable to get ration due to failure of authentication, then any other family member can produce the Aadhaar number to get the benefits. If biometric authentication is attached to every transaction entered into by a person, it would "form a wealth of information" necessitating the need for data protection, the Supreme Court observed on Wednesday. A five judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, hearing a clutch of petitions challenging Aadhaar and its enabling 2016 law, apprised the UIDAI of its apprehensions saying biometric authentication of Aadhaar number in every transaction could lead to aggregation of meta data of citizens, which can be collated and used for many purposes including surveillance. Aadhaar "Fingerprint by itself does not disclose any information. But, when it attaches with all the other information, it forms a wealth of information and then comes th

With the ongoing cash crunch, digital money gets another lifeline As news of no-cash flooded social media sites and news channels, the past 24 hours have seen a surge in people queuing to get the KYC done After a lull for months, things might be again looking up for the country’s digital money entities, due to the ongoing cash shortage. After demonetisation, the sector had a shortlived dream run, from November 2016 to mid-2017. According to the Reserve Bank of India’s data on prepaid payment instruments (a chunk of which is mobile wallets), these collectively clocked Rs 38.3 billion in transactions during January, falling to Rs 36.5 billion in February. The March numbers are not out, but might fall again - many users stopped using mobile wallets after the February 28 deadline for getting the know-your-customer (KYC) checks done by mobile wallet entities. Many had decided not to get this done and, say observers, the digital money space had lost almost 45 per cent of its user bas

Govt advances deadline for GST seller returns for April, May, June However, the government has not changed the deadline for filing GSTR-3B The government has advanced the deadlines for filing of seller forms under the goods and services tax, GSTR-1, for April, May and June, in comparison to those given for previous months. GSTR-1 for the month of April will have to be filed by May 31. Earlier, 40 days were given for filing these, which would have made June 10 the deadline. Returns for May have to be filed by June 10 and for June by July 10. So, only 10 days after the month ends, against the earlier 40 days. Abhishek Jain, indirect tax partner at consultants EY India, said businesses take four of five days to close the accounts after the month ends. Leaving them five or six days to file the return. However, the government has not changed the deadline for filing GSTR-3B. These are to still be filed by the 20th of the following month. The idea is to allow reconciliation between th