Indian reinsurer General Insurance Corporation has hardened its stance while negotiating reinsurance arrangements for the next financial year. During the first round of talks with non-life insurers, GIC said that it would pay at least 5 per cent lower commission on business that is reinsured with it. Further, it has sought a share in underwriting profits, which could be as high as 50 per cent, sources involved with the negotiations said.
The second phase of reforms was expected to address areas like extending 'national treatment' to foreign banks, which means that foreign banks would be treated on a par with Indian ones under the World Trade Organisation agreement. Other items that are to be considered include permitting listing foreign banks' wholly-owned subsidiaries in India and the acquisition of sound Indian banks by foreign banks.
In the coming days, other lenders are expected to initiate similar steps to recover their dues from the company, which is facing the prospects of a change of management. IFCI executives said that the company revoked the guarantee earlier this month to recover its dues amounting to Rs 95 crore from Maytas Infra.
In a few months, private sector lender IndusInd Bank may have a new identity. The move was in line with the repositioning exercise initiated by the new management team led by Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Romesh Sobti.
Shares of ITC, Axis Bank and Larsen & Toubro are likely to stay with the Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India, which was to be wound up in June.Legal opinion received by the government suggests that SUUTI can exist as long as all investors in one of the schemes floated by the erstwhile Unit Trust of India have not redeemed their investment, sources close to the development said. The value of the shares of the three blue chips was estimated at over Rs 15,000 cr.
After sharing the losses of state-owned fuel oil retailers, upstream producers may also have to pay income tax on the burden they take on their books.
What's worrying for the public sector banks is the rise in delinquency in the housing portfolio, which does not include real estate. But a bank chief said that with low exposure to the real estate sector, the state-run banks have fewer worries. The other area of concern is credit cards but the operations of public sector banks in this segment are small compared with the likes of ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Citibank, the largest players in the business.
Less than half-a-dozen people have evinced interest in buying the eight apartments owned by the late Harshad Mehta and his family, partly due to a last-minute case filed by the stockbroker's mother, Rasila S Mehta.
After Vodafone, UK-based Vedanta Resources Plc and Aditya Birla group firm Indian Rayon also face a potential tax demand of around Rs 900 crore and Rs 45 crore, respectively, for their failure to deduct taxes on payments to buy Indian assets, said a senior government official.
Faced with the prospect of missing the direct tax collection target because of the economic slowdown, the Income Tax department has sharply increased fresh tax demands to Rs 1,24,000 crore from companies and individuals in the current fiscal, a 130 per cent increase over fresh demands raised last year.
After the Satyam scam, the role of chartered accountants has come into focus again. This time the Income Tax Department has found that CAs have given false certificates, enabling Non-Resident Indians and foreign nationals to evade taxes in India.
In a possible precursor to further rate cuts, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's meeting with public sector bank chiefs on Monday will review their benchmark prime lending rates and interest rates on loans for automobiles, homes, small and medium enterprises and non-banking finance companies.
Though the states might lose because of providing tax credit on input, they will also gain by way of taxing services. At present, only the Centre taxes around 100 types of services. Thus, the actual losses states might incur cannot be estimated until the GST is implemented.
In a note, titled 'IIFCL financing for PPP projects,' sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Ahluwalia wrote, 'It was pointed out in the meeting that the term of the current CMD (chairman and managing director) of IIFCL ends on March 10. The FS (finance secretary) had indicated that the term can be extended. Action on this front should be expedited to avoid loss of momentum.'
Though CST is a central tax, the entire collection, estimated at Rs 250 billion per year, goes to the states. CST was to be cut to 1 per cent from April this year before its phase-out; from April 1, 2010, the country will transit to a uniform goods and services tax regime. "It was recommended by the empowered committee of state finance ministers that the CST rate of 2 per cent should continue until GST is implemented," said a source familiar with the development.
GST, which will replace almost all central and state taxes, could have two components of 8 per cent each -- one will go to the Centre and the other to the states, according to sources familiar with the talks between the Centre and the states. However, it will not cover tax on petroleum products and Customs duty.
Standard Chartered CEO-Asia Jaspal Bindra spoke to Anirudh Laskar and Sidhartha about the bank's plans and his assessment of the situation.
Serious Fraud Investigation Office joins multi-agency probe.
The Income Tax department is likely to include eight other related firms for its investigation into the possible tax evasion by Satyam.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, an advisory and consulting firm whose sister company audited the accounts of Hyderabad-based Satyam Computer Services, has a chequered past with Indian tax authorities, having admitted its "mistake" in at least two cases of tax evasion.
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