Mihir Tanna, Associate Director, S K Patodia & Associates, answers your tax queries.
The Supreme Court has appointed its former judge P V Reddi to mediate the dispute between SpiceJet and its former promoter Kalinithi Maran, the airline said on Wednesday. The dispute dates back to 2015, when Maran sold his stake in SpiceJet of 58.46 per cent, or 50.4 million shares, to Ajay Singh for Rs 2 after the airline suffered financial trouble. A year later, Maran approached the Delhi high court, alleging a breach of agreement by Singh for not issuing him 189 million share warrants and preference shares despite Maran's Rs 679-crore infusion.
The Centre is in "mission mode" to fill vacancies in government departments and ministries. The Department of Expenditure is currently following up with other wings of the government to expedite pending appointments. Regular follow-ups are being made to fill the vacant positions, so that the stated target of eliminating 1 million vacancies is met by December 2023, ahead of the next Lok Sabha elections. Even as the nodal ministry for filling vacant positions in the government is the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the Department of Expenditure's Establishment Coordination (Personnel) division is providing support for the recruitment drive.
Private equity (PE) investments in real estate sector fell 32 per cent to $4.3 billion in the last fiscal year mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to property consultant Anarock. PE investments in real estate stood at $6.3 billion in the 2020-21 financial year. According to Anarock Capital's FY22 year-end edition of its FLUX report, PE inflows in real estate were $5.1 billion in FY'20, $5.6 billion in FY'19 and $5.4 billion in 2017-18 fiscal. The consultant attributed the fall in PE investments in real estate to the second wave of the COVID-19, leading to multiple lockdowns in various parts of the country.
A slowdown in hiring by India's top IT companies has resulted in a sharp increase in the industry's profit per employee in Q3FY23. The top four IT companies earned a net profit of 1.7 lakh per employee during October-December 2022, up 8.6 per cent from Rs 1.57 lakh in Q2FY23 and 16.3 per cent from a record low of Rs 1.47 lakh in Q1FY23. Earnings per employee in the third quarter were, however, still down 0.9 per cent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis.
The forthcoming budget needs to delay fiscal consolidation, instead should focus more on supporting the pandemic battered-economy and boost consumption demand by offering income tax soaps and cutting fuel taxes, says a report. In a pre-budget report, India Ratings said it expects the new budget to consolidate and strengthen the plan set out in the last budget, rather than trying out new things by continue with the revenue and capital expenditure pattern of FY'22 to provide stability and consolidation to the past/ongoing efforts, and to focus on boosting demand by generating employment opportunities in areas/sectors that have been impacted more by the pandemic. The report therefore expects the finance minister to delay fiscal consolidation and make it to be a gradual and calibrated process, thus ensuring the necessary fiscal support that the economy needs is available till the recovery acquires its own momentum.
We are looking at bringing quality control orders for mass production items such as smart meters and ceiling fans. This will benefit our own industry and consumers, a government official said.
With the stock market turning choppy, fintech start-up MobiKwik, which had filed a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) to raise around $250 million through an initial public offering (IPO), is now looking to raise money from the private market. "We will raise private money but we are not in dire need. "The business was profitable for the first time in the December quarter on a top line of around Rs 150 crore and that will be maintained in the March quarter also. We are generating cash," said Upasana Taku, co-founder of MobiKwik.
The stellar rise in corporate earnings in financial year 2021-22 (FY21) and FY22 did not result in a corresponding boom in capital expenditure (capex), with listed companies' investment in fixed assets rising just 2.3 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in FY22, growing at the slowest pace in the last six years. In comparison, the firms' combined net profit jumped 63.5 per cent YoY in FY22, while net sales increased 31.1 per cent - the fastest pace in over a decade. The 955 non-financial companies in Business Standard's sample reported combined net profit of Rs 7.18 trillion in FY22, compared with Rs 4.39 trillion in FY21 and Rs 2.59 trillion in FY20.
CAG recommended fixing a definite time frame for rolling out simplified GST return forms.
Domestic tyre demand is seen to grow by 7-9 per cent over the next five years.
Alto, the Maruti brand synonymous with small cars, introduced the new generation K10 on Thursday, aiming to consolidate its position further amid shrinking demand for hatchbacks. With prices starting at Rs 399,000 and going up to Rs 533,500 (for manual transmission), the new model claims fuel efficiency of 24.90 km per litre. The Japanese car maker, which has been selling 100 Altos every hour for the last 22 years, had discontinued the model in February 2020.
In absolute terms, the CAD stood at $4.6 billion in the current fourth quarter, compared with $13 billion in the year-ago quarter and $17.7 billion in the third quarter of fiscal year 2018-19.
Even erstwhile independent directors were being paid substantial remuneration including commission. The median annual salary of IL&FS employees was Rs 13.1 lakh.
It said the money supply recovered to its pre-demonetisation level in mid-2017 and is now increasing steadily, similar to the previous trend.
India is now much ahead of other large railway networks in the world in terms of electrification -- with the US at just 1 per cent, China at 72 per cent and Europe at 60 per cent.
The airline had raised Rs 700 crore from the debt market through a non-convertible debenture issue and the same was up for interest payment or redemption on Thursday.
Mid-sized IT firms have stepped up hiring in the current fiscal year, adding more than half as many employees in the first quarter of FY19 as compared to the whole of the previous financial year. This momentum is likely to continue for the rest of 2018-19 (FY19) as well.
In the June quarter, growth in the segment stood at around 4 per cent, with premium collection at Rs 15,724 crore against Rs 15,074 crore in the same period of FY19. This was the lowest growth in the last five quarters, starting from Q1FY19.
RIL's bet on burgeoning consumer base and foray into new businesses such as telecom, retail, and digital services vastly expanded its business
The bigger worry is that the miss for FY19 is likely to be significant even after assuming macro factors such as crude oil prices, rupee, input costs, and interest rates, do not worsen from the current levels, reports Vishal Chhabria.
According to the Icra report, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation margin of its sample declined by 44 basis points on a YoY basis and 23 basis points on a quarter-on-quarter basis to 16.6 per cent.
While the government has infused huge capital into PSBs, the same has largely been used to mitigate losses and has failed to contribute meaningfully to credit growth.
The combined interest payment for India's top listed companies, excluding financial and oil and gas firms, was up 15.2 per cent year-on-year during the six months ended March 2019, outpacing the change in net sales and operating profit.
Once stability returns to the secondary market, companies that have obtained approval from Sebi will start tapping the market.
While the UN report said that FDI inflows rose 6 per cent in 2018 to $ 42 billion, the government's own data for the entire FY19 period has shown that inbound equity investments declined for the first time in six years in FY19.
The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India will not "walk away" and fight to get back to 50 per cent market share in the domestic passenger vehicle segment, according to company Chairman R C Bhargava. The auto major, which is commemorating 40 years of operations, has seen its market share drop to 43.38 per cent in FY22 from a peak of 51.21 per cent in FY19. In order to get back its dominant leadership, the company plans to drive in models catering to both urban and smaller cities and rural areas.
FSN E-Commerce Ventures, which runs online marketplace for beauty and wellness products Nykaa, has filed preliminary papers with markets regulator Sebi to raise Rs 3,500-4,000 crore through an initial share-sale.
Profitability and cash reserves have halved since the global financial crisis.
ITC's first foreign venture in the hotel space - a premium and luxury mixed-use development - has been "adversely impacted" by Sri Lanka's economic crisis, the firm said. The $300-million project under WelcomHotels Lanka (Private) Limited (WLPL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of ITC, comprises a luxury hotel and a super-premium residential apartment complex on 5.86 acres of prime sea-facing land in Colombo. In its latest annual report for financial year 2021-22 (FY22), ITC mentioned that the project's construction was running on schedule till the third quarter (Q3) of FY19, but was adversely impacted due to disruptions in the aftermath of the terror incidents in 2019 and thereafter by recurrent waves of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Logistics services provider Delhivery is likely to launch its downsized initial public offering (IPO) this week, said people in the know. The Softbank-backed firm may trim its issue size from Rs 7,460 crore to Rs 5,500 crore to align with the volatile market conditions, sources said. Sources added the fresh issue component of the IPO could be reduced to Rs 4,500 crore and the OFS component to Rs 1,000 crore.
Aadhaar is falling behind on technology, missing out on confidentiality and has gaps in its data archiving policy and preserving confidentiality in delivery of the cards to people, says a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). The performance report, 'Functioning Of Unique Identification Authority Of India', tabled in Parliament on the last day of the budget session notes, assigning a unique identity to all resident Indians was supposed to be the key feature of Aadhaar. But "There were instances of issue of Aadhaar with the same biometric data to different residents indicating flaws in the de-duplication process and issue of Aadhaar on faulty biometrics and documents". It says close to half a million such records had to be cancelled by the Unique Identification Authority of India up to 2016.
According to ICRA, even in a high-growth scenario, wherein the second half of FY20 sees the incremental bank credit rise to Rs 6.5-7 trn, there will still be a 40-45% year-on-year decline.
The cooking oil national industry body -- Solvent Extractors' Association (SEA) of India has suggested immediate initiation of government to government (G2G) dialogue with Indonesia on the proposed palm oil export ban from April 28 by them as it would have an adverse repercussions in India. Indonesia, which is the world's largest producer of palm oil and meets nearly 50 per cent of the total palm oil requirement in India annually, had announced to ban exports till further notice apparently to contain edible oil prices in their domestic market. "We have suggested our government initiate dialogue with Indonesian counterparts at the highest diplomatic level on the cooking oil export ban.
'Companies are being forced to pay higher salaries to retain and hire employees due to a big rise in attrition in the industry.'
Iran has offered to help India meet its energy needs by relaunching rupee-rial trade for export of oil and gas, said Iranian ambassador to India Ali Chegeni. Chegeni said if both the countries resume rupee-rial trade, bilateral trade can touch $30 billion. Iran used to be India's second largest oil supplier but New Delhi had to halt imports after the former US president Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran and re-imposed sanctions on its oil exports.
Equity investors should thank cash-rich biggies such as TCS, ITC, HUL, Nestl, and Bajaj Auto for this.
The buyback price is at around 28 per cent premium to the current market price of Rs 67 on the Bombay Stock Exchange
E-commerce platform Snapdeal is looking at filing its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) in the next few weeks to launch an initial public offering in first half of next year, according to sources. Sources close to the development said the company is looking at a $250 million (around Rs 1,870 crore) IPO that could value Snapdeal at about $1.5-1.7 billion. Snapdeal is looking at filing the DRHP in December-January time frame, and launch the IPO in the first half of 2022 after the necessary approvals, they added. One of the sources said the founders will not be selling shares as part of the IPO, and major shareholders are also expected to hold onto their shares.
According to its DRHP filed in 2010, the company's net worth was just Rs 140 crore. Its total income for the financial year 2009-10 stood at Rs 119 crore and it had a net profit of Rs 16 crore. In sharp contrast, at the end of March 2021, Paytm's networth was Rs 6,535 crore and total income stood at Rs 3,187 crore.