The clean chit to Aryan Khan and five others by the Narcotics Control Bureau on Friday has once again brought the central agency's former zonal director Sameer Wankhede under the spotlight.
More than a week after state-owned oil firms ended a 19-day pre-Karnataka poll hiatus on revising fuel prices, petrol and diesel rates have touched record highs.
The demand for extension of the GST cess regime among others was made by several state finance ministers at a pre-budget consultation called by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi. Besides, many states also demanded raising the share of the Union government in the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS). Currently, the central government and state government share in some CSS is 60:40 while in others it is 75:25.
State after state has imposed an alcohol ban, and has had to retreat, unable to address the financial and administrative fallout. Are we set for more of this cycle, asks Aditi Phadnis.
The five southern states source 10-15 per cent of their revenue from excise duty on liquor but account for nearly half of the total consumption, says a report. The financial position of these states is precarious as the coronavirus lockdown completely dried up this crucial liquidity tap for them in April.
'I have no problems with the finance ministry or with state governments treating petrol pump prices as the last resort for meeting their ambitious spending targets with very limited revenue resources.' 'But let's do away with this smokescreen of free pricing of petrol and diesel and go back to administered pricing regime,' says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
'If petro products are brought into GST, then there will be minor impact on the incidence of tax... and minor impact on prices. The price of petrol, diesel will continue to be driven by global factors'
The GST Council is scheduled to meet next on November 10 and may consider lowering tax rates on a host of goods such as handmade furniture, plastic products and daily use items like shampoo.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said taxpayer base has almost doubled to 1.28 crore in four years of rollout of the historic tax reform and the enhanced GST mop up in the recent months should now be the "new normal". In a written message to tax officers on the fourth anniversary of GST rollout, she said implementing any reform of this scale in a large and diverse country like India can be highly challenging, but GST has brought about ease in taxpayer compliance and reduced common man's tax burden.
The Indian economy is on the path of a durable recovery on the back of conducive monetary and credit conditions, the global headwinds notwithstanding, said a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) article on the state of the economy. Domestically, there have been several positives on the COVID-19 front, in terms of reduced infections and faster vaccinations, the article published in the RBI Bulletin November 2021 added. The Indian economy, the article said, is clearly differentiating itself from the global situation, which is marred by supply disruptions, stubborn inflation and surges of infections in various parts of the world.
Cars and two-wheelers attract 28% GST and a cess in the range of 3-22%, taking the effective tax rate to up to 50%.
Portfolios were on Tuesday allocated in the new Bihar cabinet headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who, predictably, retained the all-important home department which helps him keep direct control on the state police.
'It is important for states to agree 10-15 per cent duty cut and take home the same amount of tax revenue as budgeted.'
The onslaught of Chinese mobile brands is virtually obliterating Indian brands, especially in terms of value. According to industry estimates based on excise and Custom duty trends, the value share of Indian brands (across smartphones and feature phones, operator phone sales - which is mostly Jio phones - and the value of phones smuggled into the country) has dropped to a mere 1.2 per cent in January-October 2021 compared to 25.4 per cent in the calendar year 2015. In the same period, the Chinese have established their domination, hitting a value share of 64.5 per cent, up from 17.8 per cent.
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.
DRI seized contraband worth Rs 504.39 crore.
Income tax officials on Monday conducted surveys at offices of engineering major Larsen & Toubro and media firm Zee Group for alleged GST evasion, an official of the tax department said. When contacted, L&T neither confirmed nor denied the development, while the media group has confirmed the tax survey. The tax official said surveys have been carried out at many L&T premises in the city, and in case of Zee, the surveys are underway at all its offices across the country since morning.
This is the second hike in excise duty in less than two weeks as the government looks to make use of the slump in oil prices to shore up resources.
Despite a massive decline in crude oil prices since 2012 -- Modi has been prime minister in six of these eight years -- petrol in Delhi has become 10 per cent costlier and diesel 97 per cent, as of July 2.
Five days after the induction of 18 ministers into his cabinet, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday allocated portfolios, keeping Urban Development and 11 other ministries with himself, while giving the crucial Home Department to Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.
While the Centre is criticised for not cutting excise duty on petroleum products, it is the states which gain more from the rise in their prices
As Centre cedes power to states in indirect tax, it wants to all ystaffers' worry of little work.
Over 300 associations, that consists of over 3 lakh manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers and artisans among others, are participating the nationwide stir.
An average Indian spends no more than Rs 1.3 lakh per year, according to official statistics. This is close to what an average Indian earns annually. At this level of per capita income today, one litre of petrol costs one-third of an average Indian's daily income (Delhi prices), making it highly unaffordable. People in most other Asian and emerging countries find it more affordable.
The collection from borrowings and other liabilities will be 20 paise, while income tax will yield 17 paise to every rupee collection.
Union finance secretary T V Somanathan recently said the Centre had saved Rs 10,000 crore in FY22 on interest payments after adopting new accounting mechanisms for central government agencies and centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) for state governments. Speaking at an event, Somanathan said due to these, there was an unspent balance of Rs 1.2 trillion with state agencies from CSS as on March 31, 2022. This means this amount will be reduced from the Centre's borrowing for now and it can be considered a short-term saving for the exchequer.
The excise duty on unbranded petrol was increased from Rs 5.46 per litre to Rs 7.06 a litre.
Petrol price can go down to Rs 75 a litre across the country if brought under the ambit of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), but there is a lack of political will, which is keeping Indian oil product prices at one of the highest in the world, economists at SBI said on Thursday.
A realistic approach towards tax and stock taking is necessary, rather than the old narrative of bringing all petroleum products under GST and playing the blame-the-state game.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the excise duty cut would have an impact of Rs 10,500 crore on central government's tax revenues.
She charged the government with profiteering at the expense of the people, saying its duty was to help them in times of crisis and not make profits out of their hard-earned money.
With a view to keeping inflation under check, essential items including food, which presently constitute roughly half of the consumer inflation basket, will be taxed at zero rate.
The reduction in auto fuel prices today was the fifth cut in two months on back of softening global oil prices.
The expansion was the first by Sarma since he assumed chief ministership of the state about 13 months ago.
'Modi had not discussed demonetization with me prior to his announcement on 8 November 2016. 'I learnt of it along with the rest of the country. 'I was not surprised when he did not discuss the issue with me prior to making the public announcement. 'It fitted in with his style of making dramatic announcements.' A fascinating excerpt from Pranab Mukherjee's The Presidential Years: 2012-2017.
Only 80.6 per cent of the Rs 6-trillion allocation has been spent by February, data from the Controller General of Accounts shows.
In the late 1990s, Japanese electronics brand Aiwa tied up with a maverick entrepreneur, Kabir Mulchandani, to sell its consumer electronic products. Founder of Baron International, Mulchandani, all of 26 at that time, had already disrupted the television market through a tie-up with another Japanese player, Akai. With a strategy that relied on heavy discounts, exchange offers and freebies, Akai was selling in huge volumes.
The all-powerful GST Council on Friday decided to charge food delivery platforms such as Swiggy and Zomato a tax even as it extended concessional tax rates on certain COVID-19 drugs by three months till December 31. The Council, which comprises the Union finance minister and her state counterparts, decided to continue keeping petrol and diesel out of the GST purview as subsuming the current excise duty and VAT into one national rate would impact revenues. Briefing reporters on the decisions taken by the Council at a meeting here, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said GST has been exempted on muscular atrophy drugs like Zolgensma and Viltepso, which cost crores of rupees.
In its essence, GST is a national level system of value added taxation of goods and services, says Shankar Acharya.
Corporation tax is the single largest source of income, contributing 21 paise to each rupee earned.
