Ahead of the first due date of advance tax payment on June 15, the government is likely to release guidelines on what will be covered within the ambit of virtual digital assets (VDA). To remove any ambiguity in the recently established tax framework for asset holders, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is currently preparing guidelines, said government officials in the know. The apex direct tax body will define non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and whether or not they fall within the purview of VDA.
Jet fuel prices on Monday were hiked by a steep 5.3 per cent - the tenth straight increase this year -- to an all-time high, in line with a surge in global energy prices. The price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) -- the fuel that helps aeroplanes fly -- was hiked by Rs 6,188.25 per kilolitre, or 5.29 per cent, to Rs 1,23,039.71 per kl (Rs 123 per litre) in the national capital, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers. This is the 10th straight increase in jet fuel prices this year.
As soon as the House met at 2 pm, papers were laid on the table and two resolutions adopted amid slogan shouting and protest by Congress members.
The Budget oration of the finance minister and the confidence with which she delivered it, along with the measures and the recent upsurge in the economy would all contribute to unleashing the storied 'animal spirits' and help the economy run on the growth path quite smoothly. Or so the government hopes, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
Petrol price on Monday was hiked by 30 paise a litre and diesel by 35 paise, taking the total increase in rates in the last one week to Rs 4-4.10 per litre. Petrol in Delhi will now cost Rs 99.41 per litre as against Rs 99.11 previously while diesel rates have gone up from Rs 90.42 per litre to Rs 90.77, according to a price notification of state fuel retailers. Rates have been increased across the country and vary from state to state depending upon the incidence of local taxation.
Petrol prices in the country are not coming down as the states do not want to bring fuel under the ambit of the GST, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said. In an interview to PTI in Kolkata, Puri said petrol prices crossed the Rs 100-mark in West Bengal as the TMC government is levying heavy taxes. "If your question is do you want the petrol prices to come down then the answer is yes.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday reiterated that an international arbitration ruling on India's sovereign right to taxation sets the wrong precedent, but said the government is looking at how best it can sort out the issue arising out of New Delhi being ordered to return $1.2 billion plus interest and cost to UK's Cairn Energy Plc. The government, which participated in an international arbitration brought by the Scottish firm against being taxed retrospectively, has appealed against The Hague based tribunal's ruling asking the government to return the value of shares expropriated and liquidated, tax refunds withheld and dividend seized to recover a wrongly levied retroactive tax demand.
While the tax treatment does legitimise past crypto transactions, there is a possibility that any, or all, private cryptocurrencies will be banned in future.
Faced with prospect of its assets across the globe being seized just like Pakistan and Venezuela, the government decided to scrap retrospective taxation but the international embarrassment could have been avoided had 'attached' shares of Britain's Cairn Energy Plc not been sold, according to tax and legal experts. On Thursday, the government introduced a Bill in Parliament to scrap the tax rule that gave the tax department power to go 50 years back and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India. The 2012 legislation was used to levy a cumulative of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of tax on 17 entities, including UK telecom giant Vodafone, but substantial punitive action was taken only in the case of Cairn.
A survey, with over 3,700 respondents across digital platforms, found that transparent taxation has been one of the most significant initiatives of the government followed by the production-linked incentives (PLI) scheme, equalisation levy and new labour codes.
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The Union government's offer of settling the retrospective taxation case with Cairn Energy may hinge on Vedanta withdrawing the ongoing arbitration from the Singapore Tribunal on the same issue. The government has offered to refund Cairn Energy Rs 7,900 crore that it had collected under the retrospective tax demand on fulfilment of certain conditions, including withdrawal of pending litigation and furnishing of an undertaking to the effect that no claim for cost, damages, interest, etc., would be filed. This condition is also part of the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, passed by Parliament recently.
The Centre will make it mandatory for carmakers to provide a minimum of six airbags in motor vehicles that can carry up to 8 passengers for enhanced safety of occupants, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Friday. In a series of tweets, the Road Transport and Highways Minister said his ministry had already mandated the implementation of fitment of the driver airbag with effect from July 1, 2019 and front co-passenger airbag with effect from January 1, 2022. "In order to enhance the safety of the occupants in motor vehicles carrying upto 8 passengers, I have now approved a Draft GSR Notification to make a minimum of 6 Airbags compulsory," Gadkari said.
How should one billion Indians, for whom deprivation has become an inescapable way of life, join us in celebrating 75 years of Independence? And where do we go from here? asks Kalyan Singhal.
Mihir Tanna, Associate Director, S K Patodia & Associates, answers your tax queries.
Anil Rego, CEO, Right Horizons, answers your personal income tax queries.
Petrol price on Sunday was hiked by 50 paise a litre and diesel by 55 paise, taking the total increase in rates since resumption of daily price revision less than a week back to Rs 3.70-3.75 per litre. Petrol in Delhi will now cost Rs 99.11 per litre as against Rs 98.61 previously while diesel rates have gone up from Rs 89.87 per litre to Rs 90.42, according to a price notification of state fuel retailers. Rates have been increased across the country and vary from state to state depending upon the incidence of local taxation.
As the voting process for the new Conservative Party leader formally opened with postal ballots being mailed out to Tory members from Monday, Rishi Sunak vowed to cut the basic rate of income tax by 20 per cent in a few years if he is elected Britain's prime minister.
Cairn Energy and Air India have jointly asked a New York federal court to stay further proceedings in the British firm's US lawsuit targeting the airline for enforcement of a $1.2-billion arbitral award. The move follows the government enacting a law to scrap retrospective taxation in the country, which in effect will result in withdrawal of the Rs 10,247 crore tax demand on Cairn, according to court documents reviewed by PTI. The British company had won an international arbitration award against levy of such taxes and sought to take over Air India assets when the government refused to honour the award and pay it $1.2 billion-plus interest and penalty.
The government intends to continue with the top GST slab of 28 per cent for luxury and sin goods, but is open to discuss narrowing down the three slabs of 5, 12 and 18 per cent into two, Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj said on Monday. Addressing the industry leaders, Bajaj said the rate rationalisation exercise of the GST Council is a result of introspection of GST, five years after its rollout, and the policymakers do not have a "fetish" to raise the tax rates to the revenue-neutral level of 15.5 per cent. On the industry demand for bringing petroleum products under GST net, he said since fuel constitutes a larger part of their revenues, both the Centre and states have some apprehension.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's key ally in Tamil Nadu, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Wednesday slammed the saffron party alleging that it is anti-Tamil and claimed that the party could never grow in the state.
The government should bring natural gas under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime to realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for a gas-based economy and raising the share of the environment-friendly fuel in India's energy basket, an industry body that represents the likes of Reliance Industries as well as state-owned firms, has said. Natural gas is currently outside the ambit of GST, and existing legacy taxes -- central excise duty, state VAT, central sales tax -- continue to be applicable on the fuel. In its pre-Budget memorandum to the finance ministry, Federation of Indian Petroleum Industry (FIPI), which boasts of members from across the oil and gas spectrum, also demanded rationalisation of GST on transportation of natural gas through pipeline as well as on re-gasification of imported LNG to help bring down cost of the environment friendly fuel.
Every patriot should learn from our history and recognise that celebrating size will neither negate nor obscure the huge economic challenges that India faces, asserts Rathin Roy.
Billionaire Anil Agarwal's mining group Vedanta on Monday said it has withdrawn cases in the Delhi high court as well as before an international arbitration tribunal to settle a Rs 20,495 crore retrospective tax dispute with the government. Post slapping of a Rs 10,247 crore tax demand on UK's Cairn Energy Plc for alleged capital gains made on a 2016 internal reorganisation prior to the listing of its India business, the Income Tax Department had sought Rs 20,495 crore in taxes (including penalty) from Cairn India for failing to deduct tax on capital gains made by its British parent. Cairn India was in 2011 bought by Agarwal's group and subsequently, the firm was merged with Vedanta Ltd.
The Budget announcement of taxing 'virtual digital assets' or crypto currencies will help the income-tax department measure the "depth" of this trade in the country, know the investors and the nature of their investments and it does not "attach any legality" to these transactions, Central Board of Direct Taxes chairman J B Mohapatra said.
India is believed to have challenged in a court in The Hague an arbitration tribunal verdict that overturned its demand for Rs 10,247 crore in back taxes from Cairn Energy Plc -- the second time in three months that it has refused to accept an international award against retrospective tax.
Gujarat and Karnataka have been ranked as the best performers in developing startup ecosystem for budding entrepreneurs, according to the ranking of states and Union territories by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). Among smaller states having population of less than one crore, Meghalaya has been adjudged as the best performer. The rankings are based on the initiatives taken to develop the startup ecosystem for promoting budding entrepreneurs.
Several start-ups have raised concerns over taxation of angel funds under Section 56 of the Income Tax Act, which provides for taxation of funds received by an entity.
The Congress on Monday stepped up its attack on the BJP-led Centre over the issue of price rise with Rahul Gandhi saying the biggest problems facing the country were unemployment, inflation and growing hatred.
Mihir Tanna, Associate Director, S K Patodia & Associates, answers your tax queries.
Mihir Tanna, Associate Director, S K Patodia & Associates, answers your income tax queries.
Govt may tighten presumptive taxation norms and also do away with some deductions.
Company managements need to "curtail the kind of expenditures on themselves personally" with the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the need to build internal resources with a frugal style of functioning, Maruti Suzuki India chairman R C Bhargava said on Tuesday. Addressing shareholders in the company's annual general meeting held virtually, he also termed as "a good development for the whole of industry" recent shareholder actions that did not approve expenditures by management on themselves, without specifying details. In the wake of the pandemic, building internal resources has to become a priority of industry and companies.
A day after joining the OECD-G20 framework for global minimum tax, the finance ministry on Friday said some significant issues including share of profit allocation and scope of subject to tax rules are yet to be addressed and a 'consensus agreement' is expected by October after working out the technical details of the proposal. Total 130 countries on Thursday agreed to a overhaul of global tax norms to ensure that multinationals pay taxes wherever they operate and at a minimum 15 per cent rate. India is in favour of a consensus solution which is simple to implement and simple to comply.
Catch all the action from the Upper and Lower House of Parliament.
The government on Thursday brought a bill in the Lok Sabha to withdraw all back tax demands on companies such as Cairn Energy and Vodafone and said it will refund the money collected to enforce such levies.
'On the road, you see only youth in Swiggy, Big Basket and Zomato uniforms.' 'Just now, I had a delivery from Amazon, and do you know what his qualification was? He was an engineering graduate!' 'The Ola driver who took me to the airport had an MCom degree. 'Where is the match between education and employment?'
Cairn Energy has threatened the Indian government that it is looking at executing the favourable $1.2 billion international tribunal award in the retrospective taxation case by seizing India's overseas assets.
The Modi government is notoriously honest about one fact: It does not listen to economists, observes Shekhar Gupta.
To ensure free, fair and transparent assembly elections next month in Punjab, the police have intensified search operations, especially in the border districts, to keep a vigil on illegal activities in vulnerable areas.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday reduced the time limit for reopening of income tax assessment cases to three years from six years, while for serious tax fraud cases where concealment of income is Rs 50 lakh or more it would be 10 years.
