News agencies, which fulfill certain criteria, are to be exempted from payment of service tax, Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee said on Friday.
Earlier, the customer paid service tax on 1 per cent of the premium. From the next financial year, this will go up to 1.5 per cent.
State FMs okay list of tax-exempt services with certain riders.
'Sebi's move to cap brokerage charges will help investors by lowering the overall cost of investments.'
Three laws passed in Parliament could boost central revenues, reshape GST cess flows, shift MGNREGA costs to states and create new budget headroom ahead of the 2026-2027 Union Budget, points out A K Bhattacharya.
The Haj Committees and Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam Ltd, which organise the religious pilgrimages will not have to Service Tax.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had proposed to introduce a service tax of five per cent on hotel room charges and three per cent on air-conditioned restaurants that serve liquor.
Notwithstanding global headwinds, the Indian economy saw further momentum in October on the back of goods and services tax (GST) rate rationalisation and festival spending, as indicated by high-frequency indicators, the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) monthly State of the Economy report said.
In October 2024, Jindal Stainless challenged a Goods and Services Tax (GST) notice in the Delhi high court. It was about corporate guarantees issued to related parties by its former group company, Jindal Stainless (Hisar), before their merger in March 2023.
Move seen as prelude to GST rollout; rules for Cenvat credit also likely to be simplified.
Festive buying spree unleashed by lower tax rates pushed gross GST collection to about Rs 1.96 lakh crore in October, registering a 4.6 per cent year-on-year growth -- the slowest rate so far this fiscal.
Envisaging a wider role for professionals, Company Secretaries have asked the government to make mandatory issuance of a service tax compliance certificate by companies.
IT services firm HCLTech on Monday reported a 11.2 per cent decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 4,076 crore in the October-December quarter of FY26.
Despite forging an alliance with the faction led by his uncle, Nationalist Congress Party chief and Maharashtra deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Friday failed to protect the party's traditional bastions of Pune and neighbouring Pimpri-Chinchwad, as the Bharatiya Janata Party decimated both the NCPs in the municipal corporation elections.
The government seems to be contradicting its earlier clarification that "computer-enabled services, namely, back office processing, shall not be subject to service tax", opines Sachin Menon and Prasad Paranjape.
The food delivery platform sector in India employed 1.37 million workers in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) and is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3 per cent, estimates a new report released by the Delhi-based think tank National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER).
New Delhi will substantially reduce tariffs on industrial and agricultural goods while continuing to protect sensitive sectors. Tariffs on some agricultural products that are not traditionally considered sensitive will be brought down to zero, while in the case of relatively sensitive items, duties will be reduced in a graded manner and quotas will be imposed.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the Board Of Control For Cricket In India's plea against a tribunal order asking it to pay around Rs 18 crore as service tax for video graphing matches and selling the feed to private sport channels.
Facing an annual loss of a whopping Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion), shipowners have pleaded with the finance ministry to keep them out of service tax net and exempt them from withholding and fringe benefit taxes.
The Indian government has expressed its disagreement with the IMF staff's 'baseline' assumption that the 50 per cent US tariffs on its goods exports 'would remain in place indefinitely', based on which the staff pegged the country's GDP growth at 6.6 per cent this year, and pared its 2026-27 projection by 20 basis points to 6.2 per cent.
'The market is still very bullish. The demand is so strong that for eight models, we have no units in our factories to dispatch to dealers,' said Partho Banerjee, senior executive officer, marketing & sales, Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL).
The government is considering to enact Service Tax Act and is likely to allow states to levy the tax on local items after nationwide value-added tax is introduced, a senior official of Central Board of Excise and Customs said on Thursday.\n\n\n\n
After issuing notices to hotels across the country for allegedly underpaying goods and services tax (GST) on restaurant services, the revenue department has now widened its scrutiny by seeking information from online travel platforms.
A trade deal makes sense only if it is fair and reciprocal. If the cost is strategic dependence or loss of policy space, waiting is the wiser option, asserts Ajay Srivastava.
While EPF rewards patience and compounds your money, inflation decides how far your money really goes.
The local chapter of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Coimbatore has again appealed to the Centre to reconsider the imposition of service tax on goods transportation.
Britannia Industries is looking to drive volume-led growth as it looks to target regions, consumer-centric products and distribution. The company also wants to make sure that it is price-competitive in each of the regions.
Ministry will give relief to exporters through a mechanism that will enable a timely refund of credit balance and time-bound refund of additional duty of customs.
The levy will be 10%, with an abatement of 50%, effectively bringing down the service tax levy to 5% on the tariff.
The proposed 'Next Gen GST' with sweeping reforms, lower tax rates, and just two slabs, aims to boost the economy amid tariff threats and set the stage for a single tax rate regime by the time India becomes a developed nation, government sources said.
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To get what it thinks are its dues, its brass have directed; construction, realty, renting of property, personnel supply, security & goods transport among those under lens
'If a common man wants to buy an air purifier for Rs 10,000, then he will have to shell out Rs 11,800 with 18 percent GST.' 'If he is charged GST at 5 percent the same air purifier will cost Rs 10,500.' 'This saves a one time amount of Rs 1,300 -- and that too just to breathe clean air.'
'The bigger unknown remains global geopolitics, which is inherently unpredictable, including developments in our neighbourhood.' 'Another concern is the increasing tilt of government finances towards welfare subsidies, especially at the state level.' 'This could constrain capital expenditure, which is critical for long-term growth.'
Gross GST collection rose 9.1 per cent to over Rs 1.89 lakh crore in September on the back of increased sales due to rate rationalisation, as per government data released on Wednesday.
Room for rise of up to 2 percentage points, move to help meet higher expenditure need in FY17
The exemption of individual life and health insurance premiums from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) enables the insurance industry to make products affordable and attractive, said Ajay Seth, chairman of Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit 2025.
The consolidated net profit of Marico, the maker of Parachute coconut oil, declined 0.7 per cent in the second quarter (July-September) of 2025-26 (Q2FY26).
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