Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance has criticised the government for not doing a review of the tax exemptions given to Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and an evalutation of the losses due to these.
Despite raising petrol prices by around Rs 2.95 a litre - the second-biggest increase in this calendar year so far - public and private retailers are losing Rs 50 crore a day on selling the auto fuel.
If a foreign company pays interest on loan for carrying out operations in India it will be allowed tax exemption under the Income Tax Act, 1961, a tax tribunal has ruled.
The ruling, in favour of the government, will protect over Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) of revenue the tax department was expecting from the service.
Though ONGC and OIL are major producers of natural gas, they currently have no presence in its retailing and marketing, a field dominated by GAIL and its joint ventures.
Rollout likely to be pushed to next financial year.
Ethanol blending with petrol has resumed after more than a year. Last week, sale of blended petrol started in Bangalore, Mathura and parts of Gujarat. While blending will be gradually extended to the other parts of the country, the quantity of ethanol contracted so far is insufficient to continue the programme nationally beyond eight months.
Among a host of things, the Centre is planning to empower stock exchanges to collect the duty and pass it on to the states. This will be a major shift from the existing structure where states directly collect the duty, whose rate varies from one state to another.
The country will get more voice in decision-making at IMF.
The long-pending issue of seizure of Indian generic drugs by European Union countries has been resolved, with the EU accepting India's position and agreeing to amend the rules to plug the loopholes that led to the seizure of shipments.
Reliance Industries Ltd's legal battle over the Uttar Pradesh government's decision to impose 21 per cent value-added tax on gas is holding up supply to NTPC's two power plants and Indian Oil Corporation's Mathura refinery, despite a group of ministers making allocation to them.
A recent decision of the high court in Chennai on the levy of service tax on software sale has made the Union finance ministry hopeful of a similar verdict in the case of copyright services.
The empowered committee of state finance ministers has approved the position paper of the Centre on the information technology network for the proposed indirect tax regime.
The income-tax department intends to bring individuals under the ambit of the proposed controlled-foreign companies (CFCs).
In what could lead to an overhaul of policy, the Union government is looking at a new sugar subsidy mechanism as part of its decontrol proposal. It plans to rope in state governments for the purchase and distribution of sugar to below-poverty-line consumers at market prices.
After briefly maintaining prices at par with public sector oil marketing companies following the June 25 price hike, private fuel retailers Essar Oil and Reliance Industries are selling petrol and diesel at a premium of Rs 0.50 to 2.50 per litre in some states.
In a counter affidavit filed in the court, the department has said that temporary transfer of rights to copy in a limited manner will be chargeable to service tax.
GAIL India chairman and managing director B C Tripathi said the availability and possibility of gas has changed with the change in government policy.
The government has told Cairn Energy that its deal with Anil Agarwal-promoted Vedanta Resources will go through only after a formal proposal to the government is made and all clearances are obtained.
In an attempt to get states to implement the Goods and Services Tax (GST) by next April, the Centre has softened its stance on most proposals in the draft Constitutional Amendment Bill that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee hopes to pilot in the monsoon session.
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