BMW Group India recorded its highest annual sales on the back of strong demand for its top-end ICE (internal combustion engine) and electric vehicles (EVs). The German luxury automaker on Thursday announced that its domestic car sales jumped 18 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to 14,172 units in calendar year 2023 (CY23). This mirrored a trend in the luxury space, with its peers also reporting record numbers.
Air travellers currently can bring a flat screen television for personal use without paying any duty.
The United States has approached the World Trade Organisation against India over the high customs duty it imposes on import of wine and distilled spirits.
The auto major is not just looking at domestic sales, but also planning to ramp up exports to key markets from here, like the Middle East, North Africa and Australia.
India's leading steel companies hope the Modi 3.0 Budget will continue the massive capital expenditure currently underway, focusing on infrastructure development, manufacturing, and fair trade. The infrastructure segment is the largest steel user, and the government's focus has fuelled steel consumption even as international markets have underperformed. According to provisional statistics, steel consumption grew 13.6 per cent in FY24, reaching 136 million tonnes (mt), according to a CRISIL report.
'Today, let us reaffirm our commitment to strive to realise Gandhiji's dreams. His watchwords, truth and nonviolence, will continue to remain relevant for the whole world. He also taught us that rights and duties are but the two sides of the coin - indeed, the true source of rights is duty. Today we recall his lessons in compassion too - compassion not only for our human neighbours but also for our other neighbours, namely, flora and fauna, rivers and mountains.'
Excise duty on most products has been capped at 12.5 per cent
The government has reduced the tariff value for import of edible oil, including palm oil, by up to $112 per tonne, a move which experts said can lead to lower domestic prices. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), through a notification, has cut the tariff import value of crude palm oil by $86 per tonne, and of RBD and crude palmolein by $112 per tonne each. It also reduced the base import price of crude soyabean oil by $37 per tonne. The changes in tariff value of edible oil are effective from Thursday (June 17).
'Our attempt to honour the taxpayer has been since 2014 and more actively since 2019-2020 onwards.'
Granting SCS to the state has been a long-pending demand of the JD-U supremo and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, whose Bihar cabinet had even passed a resolution last year requesting the Centre to grant SCS to the state.
All investors should ideally have a 10 to 15 per cent allocation to gold. Whether they invest in gold ETFs or SGBs should depend on their investment horizon.
The government is beefing up enforcement against tax cheats in real estate sector, says Panagariya
The government has revised gold import data, bringing down numbers for November by $5 billion to $9.84 billion, possibly to rectify double accounting of inbound shipments. According to revised data of the commerce ministry arm Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS), gold import numbers have been slashed since April 2024, revealing excess imports of about $11.7 billion during the first eight months of 2024-25.
The deficit stood over Rs 8 trillion in the first seven months of the current financial year. Non-tax revenues, comprising transfers from the RBI and dividends of the public sector units, shored up the Centre's revenues.
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.
India, the world's largest gold consumer, is unlikely to announce a cut in customs duty on gold in its annual budget on Friday, despite demands by a leading industry body, traders said on Monday.
The impact of fiscal measures announced by the government to contain inflation will be seen in the next few months because of the base effect, reports Indivjal Dhasmana.
Mumbai, infamous for its voter apathy, stepped out to exercise its franchise on Wednesday.
Exporters on Thursday demanded fiscal incentives, tweaking in customs duties on certain products and credit at affordable rates in the forthcoming Budget to boost exports and create jobs. In a pre-budget virtual meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said the depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar is affecting exports' competitiveness and the sector requires more support. "Creation of employment is the biggest challenge faced by the country...We would urge the government to provide fiscal support to units which provide additional employment in the export sector," the exporter's body said.
For every rupee in the government coffer, 58 paise will come from direct and indirect taxes, 34 paise from borrowings and other liabilities, six paise from non-tax revenue like disinvestment and two paise from non-debt capital receipts, according to the Budget documents for 2023-24.
For every rupee in the government coffer, the biggest pie of 63 paise will come from direct and indirect taxes, according to the Union Budget 2024-25 documents.
SAIL and Essar are understood to have agreed on slashing prices on some steel products by up to Rs 2,000 a tonne.
The Centre is unlikely to offer new direct tax incentives for units operating in special economic zones (SEZs) and may instead allow the grandfathering of previous exemptions that such units were entitled to, according to proposed amendments to the SEZ Act, 2005, people aware of the matter said. The amendments, proposed by the commerce department, will soon be considered by the Cabinet for approval. This represents a departure from the department's earlier plan to introduce these changes through the Development Enterprises and Services Hubs (DESH) Bill, 2023, which faced strong criticism from the ministry of finance.
'Developers are into profit-making. And there's not too much money in the affordable segment.' 'So, they don't do affordable housing.'
'We participate in the design/development of components and systems for electric vehicles, internal combustion engines, and hybrid vehicles.'
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has visited the manufacturing facility of US-based electric vehicle major Tesla at Fremont, California and said that the company would be doubling its auto components imports from India. The minister is in the US on a four-day visit. The world's largest electric car producer Tesla Inc's chief Elon Musk met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June in New York and after the meeting Musk had said that he planned to visit India in 2024.
The California walnuts shipped from the US to India have seen a sharp uptick with imports more than doubling from September to November against the same period last year. This comes after New Delhi removed its retaliatory customs tariffs on the key dry fruit. Two days ahead of US President Joe Biden's visit to New Delhi to attend the G20 Summit on September 9-10, India dropped additional customs duties on about half a dozen US goods that were imposed in 2019 in response to America raising tariffs on certain steel and aluminum products coming from India.
Petroleum industry Friday demanded abolition of 5 per cent customs duty on imported LNG and a uniform 4 per cent sales tax on LNG throughout the country to promote its use.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents her fourth Budget in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
More than 50 per cent of SIP accounts come from semi-urban and rural areas.
Since the last nine years, gold investors have made money each year, while gains in silver have been consistent only in the last five years.
In another step against smoking, the government has reduced by 50 per cent the duty free allowance of cigarettes to 100 sticks and 25 cigars in airports. The decision comes barely a day after Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proposed 'sin tax' and announced increase in excise duty on cigarettes in the range of 11 to 72 per cent.
The DTH industry has to pay entertainment tax to state governments and service tax to the central government.
The move will primarily impact luxury car companies like Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi and Volvo and bike brands like Triumph and Harley Davidson.
'I found it unbelievable that L&T said 45,000 jobs were waiting to be filled because of unavailability of suitable skillsets.' 'So, when the Opposition sweepingly says there are no jobs, I'm sorry... I'm not saying it's raining jobs, but there are jobs. The (skill) gap has to be bridged.'
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