The threat by IT firms to boycott the annual mega IT show here in October seems to have blown over after state government promised to upgrade Bangalore's infrastructure.
After attacking the Jet-Etihad deal, Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday trained his guns on the Air Asia proposal to set up an Indian carrier, saying the FIPB clearance to it was "not legally valid".
Six more states are set to join the value added tax regime from April
ICICI Infotech outsmarted Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro to get the mandate from states for setting up a national tax information exchange system (Tinxsys) to track inter-state transactions and check tax evasion.
Seeking to allay fears of the trading community, the Empowered Committee on Value Added Tax on Thursday said there would no 'inspection raj' when the new state-level tax regime comes into effect from April 2005.
The Centre has put the blame on state governments while state governments complain that money is not released for the proposals given by them to the Empowered Committee that has been tasked with recommending proposals to be funded under this framework.
The empowered committee of state finance ministers on Monday said the Value-added Tax will be implemented from April 1, 2005, even if Uttar Pradesh does not fall in line.
The meeting of the Empowered Committee of Finance Ministers of States and Union Territories began with some states demanding that they be allowed to charge service tax on certain items pending a decision on the implementation of VAT.
Delhi and Maharashtra may lower value added tax on bullion to 0.25 per cent as consensus on introducing uniform floor rate for precious metals seemed difficult to emerge at the empowered committee's meeting on Wednesday
The panel on value added tax has decided that items which have at least 50 per cent industrial use will attract 4 per cent tax rate for that particular use.
In a major step towards tax reforms, the Centre on Tuesday agreed on a 3-tier system of compensating the states that incur revenue loss on account of implementing the value-added tax from April 2005.
"There will be some challenges" in the switchover to GST in the short term, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has warned.
Maharashtra is likely to incur a revenue loss of Rs 1,500-2,000 crore (Rs 15-20 billion) in the current fiscal due to implementation of value added tax.
The empowered committee of state finance ministers is firm on sticking to the April 1 deadline for switching over to Value Added Tax despite the "friction" coming in the way from traders and a handful of states.
Finance Minister Jaswant Singh has called off the meeting with empowered committee on value-added tax, scheduled for Tuesday.
The contentious issue of value added tax was resolved on Tuesday with the state finance ministers deciding to implement from June 1 the new tax system in place of the sales tax.
The empowered committee of state finance ministers for implementation of value added tax would meet in first half of January 2004, to decide on the implementation of the new tax system.
The state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation has walked away with bulk of the 21 oil and gas exploration blocks in the fourth round of new exploration licensing policy.
Finance Minister Jaswant Singh will soon convene a meeting of state chief ministers to work out details for implementation of the much-delayed value added tax in the country.
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