Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and other finance ministry officials have reached the last leg of pre-Budget consultations.
After increasing the direct tax collections target in 2010-11 by Rs 20,000 crore (Rs 200 billion), the finance ministry now plans to raise the indirect tax receipts by at least Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 3,25,000 crore (Rs 100 to Rs 3,250 billion) for the same period.
The move is aimed at freeing up about Rs 3 lakh crore (Rs 3 trillion) in tax value locked up in appeal.
They've proposed a sub-committee under the proposed GST Council or the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers to resolve any disputes in the tax's implementation.
Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance has criticised the government for not doing a review of the tax exemptions given to Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and an evalutation of the losses due to these.
If a foreign company pays interest on loan for carrying out operations in India it will be allowed tax exemption under the Income Tax Act, 1961, a tax tribunal has ruled.
The ruling, in favour of the government, will protect over Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) of revenue the tax department was expecting from the service.
Rollout likely to be pushed to next financial year.
Among a host of things, the Centre is planning to empower stock exchanges to collect the duty and pass it on to the states. This will be a major shift from the existing structure where states directly collect the duty, whose rate varies from one state to another.
The country will get more voice in decision-making at IMF.
The long-pending issue of seizure of Indian generic drugs by European Union countries has been resolved, with the EU accepting India's position and agreeing to amend the rules to plug the loopholes that led to the seizure of shipments.
A recent decision of the high court in Chennai on the levy of service tax on software sale has made the Union finance ministry hopeful of a similar verdict in the case of copyright services.
The empowered committee of state finance ministers has approved the position paper of the Centre on the information technology network for the proposed indirect tax regime.
The income-tax department intends to bring individuals under the ambit of the proposed controlled-foreign companies (CFCs).
In a counter affidavit filed in the court, the department has said that temporary transfer of rights to copy in a limited manner will be chargeable to service tax.
In an attempt to get states to implement the Goods and Services Tax (GST) by next April, the Centre has softened its stance on most proposals in the draft Constitutional Amendment Bill that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee hopes to pilot in the monsoon session.
Says banks strong enough to tackle the problem on their own
But contentious areas like special economic zones, capital gains and Ulips may see changes
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had asked officials in his ministry to finalise the draft by August 20 so that it could be in Parliament before the session concluded on August 27, said a finance ministry official.
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