Private insurers are planning to launch property title insurance covers in India soon. Foreign investment is therefore likely to enter the Indian real estate market.
General insurers violated IRDA norms on discounts. IRDA reveals plans for 2008
Come April 2008 and Delhi will become the first state in the country to do away with printed "stamp paper", which is currently mandatory for property-related documentation.
Insurance companies have started offering IT, IT-enabled services, business process outsourcing and non-manufacturing companies with policies due for renewal on January 1 discounts of more than 60 per cent.
Petroleum products such as crude, motor spirit and diesel, and alcohol beverages will be kept outside the dual goods and service tax (GST) structure, which will be implemented from April 2010.
Besides central cess, the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers has also recommended to keep purchase tax and octroi, which are collected at state and local levels, outside the GST framework.
The government will soon finalise a reshuffle of top management teams in the country's leading 11 public sector banks (PSBs), 10 of which are listed on the stock exchanges. They include the country's third largest bank, Canara Bank, and fifth largest bank, Bank of Baroda.
A special bench of the Delhi Income Tax Appellate Tribunal has ruled that the income tax that an employer pays on behalf of its employee is a non-monetary benefit in kind and, therefore, exempt from tax.
Seventy five per cent of the non-life insurance industry, which consists of fire, engineering and motor covers, was subject to rates prescribed by the Tariff Advisory Committee up to December 2006, irrespective of whether the risk was good or bad. The industry was partially detariffed on January 1, 2007, but the regulator restricted the discounts insurers could give to minimise the dangers of an irrational price war.
Compliance levels in India have improved significantly over the past few years with 85 per cent of the country's 31.9 million tax payers filing income tax returns in 2006-07. But this is still below the near-100 per cent compliance levels in developed countries.
State Bank of India (SBI) is asking prospective partners for its general insurance foray to pay it Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) to Rs 350 crore (Rs 3.5 billion) as entry premium, insurance industry sources said.
The taxman is rapidly catching up with foreign companies operating in India through agents. After Star, Morgan Stanley and Sony, it was the turn of UK-based Rolls Royce to be asked to pay taxes on a part of profits earned from Indian operations.
With an eye on channelising domestic savings into the power sector, the finance ministry is considering granting income-tax exemptions for individual investments up to Rs 50,000 in power infrastructure bonds.
A decision in this regard will be taken by the empowered committee of state finance ministers in its meeting on December 20.
In a move that will significantly reduce paperwork for producers of goods and services, the draft recommendations submitted by the all-states joint working group on goods and services tax (GST) have said one document will have to be filed.
The suggestion is to introduce a "capital transaction tax" based on the "circle rate" of the state in which the deal is registered.
Rising compliance, buoyant collections may prompt this move
Debt conversion formula will increase govt stake.
The Hinduja Group plans to enter the financial services space in India with a bang. Apart from plans to set up life insurance, non-life insurance and asset management companies, the group is also working towards areas such as wealth management, broking and portfolio management services. The group has finalised its partners for setting up a holding company, which will have three business arms offering wealth management, broking and portfolio management services.
The government may infuse about Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) as equity capital in nationalised banks in addition to an identical amount in the country's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI). Nationalised banks with the government holding closer to the floor of 51 per cent are likely to receive the capital infusion support.
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