Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan, who retains charge of financial services, has shown an ability to grasp ground realities in pushing critical reforms.
Even as some government departments have raised concerns on the Bill in its present form, the finance ministry has decided not to delay any further and may table it in Parliament next week.
"There is a lot of opposition from the garment industry, but we are not in favour of a complete rollback of the duty. We understand their concerns and will try to address these. We may simplify some procedures for them," said a finance ministry official.
As a step towards the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST), the finance ministry plans to come up with a discussion paper on a negative list for services by the end of the next month.
The new limits for filing appeals by the Income Tax department before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), high courts and the Supreme Court have been revised to Rs 3 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 25 lakh, respectively, from Rs 2 lakh, Rs 4 lakh and Rs 10 lakh.
The Bill - to centrally regulate microfinance institutions (MFIs) - may also cap the rates charged by these institutions or limit margins, that is, the difference between the rate charged from the borrower and the lender's cost of funds.
We thought if tax rates were not increased, manufacturing units would have more profits and that would be further invested in growth. Automatically, with growth, taxes go up.
Government will get an additional tax of Rs. 2,110 crore from proposed changes.
The National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange have given their in-principle approvals for collecting stamp duty.
There will be capital gains tax of 20 per cent with indexation.
A finance ministry official said since the service tax was capped at Rs 100 for domestic and Rs 500 for international travel, in many cases, the credit of tax paid on inputs used to provide services was more than the service tax paid by the airline.
G-20, the grouping of developed and emerging market economies, will focus on food security but issues concerning India like rising prices of vegetables may not come up for discussions at a meeting in Paris next week.
Banks have started putting the brakes on short-term corporate loans.
The multi-crore fraud at the Gurgaon branch of Citibank has prompted the banking regulator to review existing norms for the portfolio management services (PMS) of banks.
Following Anand Sinha's elevation as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor, S Karuppasamy has been promoted an executive director (ED) to fill the vacancy. Prior to this, Karuppasamy was the regional director (Kolkata).
The government may have to wait a little longer to get a trail of illegal money stashed by Indians in Liechtenstein.
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 second half of the financial year will be an important milestone for ICICI Bank.
The move is aimed at freeing up about Rs 3 lakh crore (Rs 3 trillion) in tax value locked up in appeal.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances