The government is pushing state-owned banks to offer interest rates on housing loans up to Rs 20 lakh (Rs 2 million) at pre-2004 levels.
The government aims to make highway projects more attractive to the private sector by raising the approved or sanctioned cost of all projects to be implemented under the private-public partnership mode by 15 per cent.
The rate cuts are expected to infuse Rs 80,000 crore into the banking system.
Interest charged by government lower than bank rates.
A department committee, set up to look at ways to expand the TDS net, is scheduled to meet in Hyderabad to discuss the proposal. hile some services like contracts, construction and rentals are under the TDS net, a large number of services like beauty treatment, connectivity between mobile operators, event management, credit rating agencies, market research firms and authorised automobile service stations are not.
With the global financial crisis hurting more companies in developed countries, Indian insurance firms have hiked premium rates by 25-30 per cent for export credit insurance covers and have imposed a host of restrictions such as maximum liability and credit limit in case of single buyers.
In a move to boost liquidity, the government and the Reserve Bank of India are considering a special window to enable banks with farm loan relief scheme arrears, a major factor impacting liquidity, to raise funds. The move will help inject liquidity into the system till Parliament approves the Rs 25,000-crore reimbursement.
With the government and the Reserve Bank of India taking steps to ease the liquidity crunch, home borrowers and small enterprises may get 25-50 basis points relief from high interest rates in the short term.
The finance ministry is likely to float a discussion paper next month on the proposed new income tax law, which aims to simplify the existing law and phase out tax exemptions.
'There has been an enormous amount of attention paid to issues like capital account convertibility, bank privatisation and bank priority sector norms. There are many other areas where reforms are less controversial, but perhaps as important,' the report of the high-level Committee on Financial Sector Reforms headed by Raghuram Rajan, a professor at Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, said.
The Income Tax Department has put real estate firms, who developed housing projects for low- and medium-income groups, under the scrutiny for wrongful tax exemption claims.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes is considering a proposal to widen the ambit of the Annual Information Return to cover cash cards issued by non-banking financing companies in the country, official sources said. The AIR currently covers seven kinds of transactions, including cash deposits in savings bank accounts of over Rs 10 lakh in a year, credit card billing of over Rs 200,000 a year and purchase of property over Rs 30 lakhs (Rs 3 million).
A separate law for faster enforcement of high-value business contracts is on the anvil. The aim is to boost the business and investment climate in India, a country that many perceive is bedevilled by difficulties in doing business.
Decision on additional Rs 2 lakh debt at 7% rate shortly.
In another instance of Indian tax authorities adopting a hard-nosed stance to prevent abuse of tax avoidance treaties, the revenue department recently opposed a proposal of a Cyprus-based company to increase its stake in an Indian telecom services company from 40 per cent to nearly 74 per cent.
The Income Tax Department has decided to hike the tax deducted at source rate to 10 per cent, taking the total incidence to 11.33 per cent (including 3 per cent education cess and 10 per cent surcharge), as against the existing incidence of 2.33 per cent, official sources told Business Standard.
Be ready to pay service charges if you are sending money home using the State Bank of India's network of over 10,000 branches.
The government is likely to list four or five more of state-owned companies, which include Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd, Manganese Ore India Ltd and Cochin Shipyard, by March next year. A senior government official said the government plans to dilute up to 10 per cent in these companies.
The Delhi-headquartered bank had favoured private placement over an initial public offer due to the stock market's volatility, a source familiar with the development said. "An initial public offer now is out of question," the source said. The private placement of shares is likely to be with public sector companies Life Insurance Corporation, UTI and Small Industries Development Bank of India but private sector participation is not completely ruled out.
The move is being viewed as an effort by the government to expand the taxpayer base.
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