Until now, salaried individuals having income under the head LTCG were required to file Form ITR-2.
As in-person negotiations between India and the US kickstarted on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expected India to strike the first bilateral trade deal to avert President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs.
The income-tax (I-T) department has issued showcause notices under Section 68 of the Income-Tax Act to several startups over funds routed through Singapore, seeking explanations for investments received over the past five years, people familiar with the development said. The department is questioning the source, identity, and creditworthiness of overseas investors in these transactions, they said.
These cases are being reopened under Section 147 of the Income Tax Act, which empowers the department to reassess income if it believes that taxable income has escaped assessment.
The revised guidelines are aimed at curbing discretionary practices by field officers, especially the tendency to seek documents not mandated under the law.
This is the first case involving India and the US at the WTO after both sides decided to withdraw all seven pending cases at the WTO during the Biden administration.
'I certainly hope the two can avoid a trade war and believe they will.' 'I expect some in India will push for retaliatory tariffs if the Trump administration applies significant reciprocal tariffs.'
Industry associations and companies in the United States, including the US Chamber of Commerce, Coalition of Services Industries and the iconic bike company Harley Davidson have called on the Donald Trump dispensation to push India to reduce tariffs, non-tariffs, and regulatory barriers to boost American exports.
'Bringing it back will help prevent reassessments of the income already disclosed.'
European Union (EU) companies operating in India want New Delhi to streamline or remove non-tariff barriers such as Quality Control Orders (QCOs), complex Customs procedures; simplify labelling, testing, and import procedures; and facilitate cross-border digital transactions without data localisation constraints. These are results of a Business Sentiment Survey, 2025 conducted by the Federation of European Business in India (FEBI) ahead of resumption of negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA) between both the sides scheduled to be concluded by year-end.
In September last year, India received financial information from over 108 countries regarding foreign accounts and income in the form of interest and dividend earned outside India.
'The answer is not for me to give. The answer either way has to be heard from the industry itself. Tell us why not if you are not doing it; tell us if you are doing it -- why should this question remain unanswered?'
Using the debt-to-GDP ratio as a fiscal anchor aligns with efforts to promote fiscal transparency through proper disclosure of off-budget borrowings.
ITRs with zero tax liability have increased to 55.7 million in FY25.
'Spend, but create assets, spend but make sure that people benefit from it.' 'This has been a beautiful guiding principle. And I think as a finance minister I owe so much to the prime minister for keeping this path clear before us.'
'Our attempt to honour the taxpayer has been since 2014 and more actively since 2019-2020 onwards.'
'We are not incentivising the old tax scheme. These taxpayers will also shift to the new regime after comparison.'
'Going forward, the encouragement would be to move to the new tax regime.'
'Nearly 10 million people will benefit from the increase in the rebate limit for those earning up to Rs 12 lakh.' 'We expect all that money will come back into the economy in either savings, consumption, or investments.'
This will be the first full-year Budget of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government since it came to power for a third consecutive term in July last year.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances