Redrafting the Direct Taxes Code is proving to be an uphill task for the finance ministry, bombarded with comments from various stakeholders. The Central Board of Direct Taxes has received about 10,000 suggestions on the code, which seeks to replace the Income Tax Act of 1961.
The scaling down of the branch expansion plan is part of SBI's overall game plan to check costs.
The finance ministry has suggested forming a GST council, headed by the Union finance minister, to address disputes between the Centre and the states in the proposed GST regime.
With less than a year left for the scheduled introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), most states have increased their VAT (value-added tax) rates. The move is seen as an attempt to extract better compensation from the Centre for loss on account of GST rollout
The annual Finance Bill may soon become far less exciting as the government plans to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding tax proposals in Budget. Once the Direct Taxes Code (DTC) and Goods and Services Tax (GST) are in place, the finance ministry will adopt a public discussion approach for most future decisions, while confining the annual exercise to a few procedural changes.
The Union finance ministry may have to battle it out in court with the sponsors of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament to make them comply with its service tax payment demands.
With the Indian Premier League (IPL) story getting murkier, investigative agencies have cast their net wide to include banks. The idea is to dig out information about their financial exposure to the 10 IPL franchisees.
With recent issues from state-run companies receiving lukewarm response from the markets, the government has downscaled its divestment programme this year, restricting it to a maximum of eight companies.
After failing to convince states to keep petroleum products within the ambit of the proposed goods and services tax (GST), the Centre has finally relented. It has agreed to the proposal of the empowered committee of state finance ministers to keep petroleum products like crude, motor spirit, aviation turbine fuel (ATF) and high-speed diesel out of GST.
A senior official in the finance ministry said the Central Board of Direct Taxes addressed the nine areas of concern in the Code identified by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
The government has taken the first concrete step towards the introduction of the goods and services tax.
With the economic turnaround now on a firm wicket, the Reserve Bank of India has made restructuring of debt by companies tougher.
A number of public sector banks will have to stock up on core capital, if the Reserve Bank of India decides to ask banks to leave out hybrid instruments while computing Tier-I capital adequacy, as indicated by RBI last week.
Savings bank account holders are a happier lot. The reason: They will earn more on their deposits from April. However, this isn't good news for banks, as their margins will come under pressure
The levy had to come into effect from April 1. It would now be in force from July 1.
Discounts for retail investors may become a part of the government's disinvestment policy, instead of being offered on a case-to-case basis. The discount offered could be up to 10 per cent of the issue price.
The government got Rs 9,930 crore from its follow-on offer of NMDC shares, leaving it short by Rs 1,448 crore for its year's disinvestment target of Rs 25,000 crore. In addition, it got about Rs 2.5 crore by way of interest income on the issue money from banks.
PSB may get its first non-Sikh at the helm, vigilance clearances are awaited.
The government would fall short of its target for direct tax collections for the second consecutive year, with the revenue department estimating its direct tax receipts at Rs 3,70,000 crore (Rs 3700 billion) for 2009-10.
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