The government on Wednesday extended the tenure of Enforcement Directorate Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra by a year till November 18, 2022, days after the Centre brought ordinances to allow ED and Central Bureau of Investigation directors to occupy the office for up to five years.
'The finance ministry and the RBI will never admit to the difficulties in the economy because if they do so, it will adversely impact the financial markets, etc.' 'They like to present a rosy picture that everything is fine and under control.'
The government has put off by one month the levy of an additional Rs 2 per litre excise duty on petrol and diesel that is not doped with ethanol and bio-diesel in a bid to give the industry more time to implement the measure.
The Centre has cleared the entire GST compensation payable till date by releasing Rs 86,912 crore to states, the finance ministry said on Tuesday. Of this, Rs 25,000 crore is released from the GST compensation fund and the balance Rs 61,912 crore is being released by the Centre from its own resources pending collection of cess. Of the total compensation released, Rs 17,973 crore is towards April and May dues, Rs 21,322 crore towards February-March dues and Rs 47,617 crore is the balance of compensation payable up to January 2022.
To threaten China and Pakistan, and then to sharply cut back on military funding, bespeaks a remarkable trust in Beijing and Islamabad that is not borne out by anything they say or do, notes Ajai Shukla.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Monday relaxed the norms for valuing perpetual bonds. The norms, which had sought to value banks' deemed residual maturity of Basel III additional tier 1 (AT1) bonds as 100-year debt from April 1, were strongly opposed by the finance ministry. In a statement released on Monday, the regulator said the maturity would be 10 years until March 31, 2022, and would be increased to 20 and 30 years over the subsequent six-month period.
Thanks to an ambiguous law on the import of platinum alloys, some bullion importers are making big profits. A handful of them are importing refined gold cloaked as platinum alloy. Gold attracts 15 per cent import duty, as opposed to platinum alloy that invites a duty of 10.75 per cent. Industry sources say this is a case of mis-declaration and duty violation.
The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has arrested a person who the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) said has emerged as the mastermind of the racket of incorporating a large number of shell companies with Chinese links in India.
Industry body CII has pitched for a reduction in personal income tax rates, decriminalisation of the goods and services tax and a relook at the capital gains tax rates as part of its agenda presented to the government for the forthcoming Budget. Arguing that the GST law already contains adequate penal provisions for deterrence against evasion of taxes, CII has suggested decriminalisation of GST law. Also, the applicability of prosecution provisions should not be based on the absolute amount of tax evasion but should be based on real intent to evade the taxes and a certain percentage of the tax payable, it stated.
Total number of GSTR-3B returns filed up to January 30, 2022 is 1.05 crore that includes 36 lakh quarterly returns, the finance ministry said. January is the fourth straight month when Goods and Services Tax collection has crossed Rs 1.30 lakh crore.
The finance ministry will kick-start the exercise to prepare the annual Budget for 2023-24 from October 10, in the backdrop of revival of the Indian economy and fears of recession in developed countries. The budget for the next year will have to address critical issues of high inflation, job creation, boosting demand, and putting the economy on a sustained 8 per cent-plus growth path. On Wednesday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said inflation is no longer "red-lettered" and the priority for the government now is job creation and boosting growth.
The income tax department on Wednesday conducted raids in multiple states as part of a pan-India tax evasion probe against certain registered unrecognised political parties (RUPP) and their alleged dubious financial transactions, official sources said.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has issued detailed guidelines on facilitating tax deducted at source (TDS) on virtual digital assets (VDA) or crypto assets, under which date of transfer and mode of payment will have to be specified. From July 1, TDS of 1 per cent will be levied on payments towards virtual digital assets or cryptocurrencies beyond Rs 10,000 in a year, as the Finance Act 2022 has introduced Section 194S in the income tax (I-T) Act. The department has explained different scenarios through six questions to remove difficulties.
Electoral bonds have been pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of efforts to bring transparency in political funding.
GST collections for January touched an all-time high of about Rs 1.20 lakh crore, the finance ministry said on Sunday. The ministry said in line with the trend of recovery in the GST revenues over past five months, the revenues for the month of January 2021 are 8 per cent higher than that in the same month last year.
The staff at post offices misappropriated Rs 95.62 crore of public money between November 2002 and September 2021, the Comptroller and Auditor General has said. The money may seem small but it is what common citizen invested in post office savings, the oldest and the largest banking system in the country. The system serves the investment needs of urban and rural clients through schemes such as savings bank, recurring deposits, time deposits, national savings certificates, kisan vikas patras, public provident fund, monthly income account scheme, sukanya samriddhi accounts and senior citizens savings scheme.
India's economic image is not affected due to Adani Group's recent decision to pull out Rs 20,000 crore FPO (follow-on public offers) amid allegations of financial wrongdoings, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday.
'They have started becoming an important player, but not at the same level as they were in the earlier part of the decade.'
A proposal in the Union Budget 2022-23 to raise excise duty on dirtier, unblended retail petrol and diesel has met with some resistance from the petroleum ministry. However, finance ministry officials say no such communication arguing against the levy of extra duty on diesel has been received from the oil ministry. Until there are discussions between the two departments, the proposal will not be tweaked in the Finance Bill. The Rs 2 per litre additional excise duty proposed on unblended fuels in the Finance Bill will result in a uniform hike of diesel prices across the country from October 1.
The finance ministry on Monday said it will transfer Rs 6,000 crore as the second tranche of GST compensation shortfall to 16 states and 3 Union Territories -- including Maharashtra, Bihar, Assam, Puducherry and Delhi. The Centre had on October 23 transferred Rs 6,000 crore to 16 states and 2 UTs of Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir. In the second tranche of transfer, Union Territory of Puducherry has been included.
Minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh said it is a major step to place the right talent for the right role.
In this round, the market has won. But it is still for Gautam Adani to decide whether he has lost or not, argues Shekhar Gupta.
The government has approved 8.1 per cent rate of interest on employees' provident fund (EPF) deposits for 2021-22 -- an over four-decade low -- for about five crore subscribers of retirement fund body EPFO. Earlier in March this year, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) had decided to lower the interest on provident fund deposits for 2021-22 to 8.1 per cent from 8.5 per cent provided in 2020-21. According to an EPFO office order issued on Friday and reviewed by PTI, the Ministry of Labour and Employment has conveyed approval of the central government to credit 8.1 per cent rate of interest for 2021-22 to each member of the EPF scheme.
Although the Disaster Management Act for Covid containment measures, considered a hindrance in conducting the census, was withdrawn in March this year the Centre has not taken any further action on conducting the much-delayed population enumeration.
The Centre is looking to improve disclosures made by public sector undertakings (PSUs), and has asked such companies to share monthly progress made on capital expenditure targets and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives undertaken by them. New details such as gender-wise reporting of contractual workers, unused land, and profit share in joint venture companies have also been added in the list of disclosures. The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE), which publishes the Public Enterprises Survey and collects information for Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) signed with PSUs, is looking to integrate data collected from government-owned companies.
'Given the possibility that our unstable northern and western borders may become 'live' at short notice, any major systemic change which impacts combat effectiveness should be brought about in a cautious and progressive manner.'
This is a key reason for the finance ministry's objection to fixing the tenure at 100 years, as it is pushing PSBs to be self-dependent and raise funds from the market, reports Hamsini Karthik.
The finance ministry said the notification pertains to putting in place an efficient mechanism for collection of stamp duty on security market instruments transactions through stock exchanges or clearing corporations authorised by stock exchanges and depositories.
He was permanently absorbed into the ED cadre in 2014 and has headed some high-profile investigations into the 2G spectrum allocation case, the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the money laundering cases against former Union finance minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, the Aircel Maxis and VVIP choppers case.
The telecom industry, he said, is vital to the nation and the digital agenda of the government.
Spending continues to be less as people who are getting direct benefits from the government are choosing to save in the current situation.
The Centre's capital expenditure (capex) outlay for the April-June quarter (first quarter, or Q1) of 2022-23 (FY23) could be close to Rs 1.5 trillion, Business Standard has learnt. As a percentage of full-year capex Budget Estimates (BE) of Rs 7.5 trillion, this could be at similar levels to the trends in the past few fiscal years. It is in the July-September quarter (Q2) of FY23 that capex is expected to pick up, when a bulk of the long-term capex loans to states are expected to be expended.
Under fire for technical glitches plaguing the new income tax return filing portal, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh on Wednesday said the new portal developed by his company is seeing "steady progress" and already 1.9 crore returns have been filed. He further said that taxpayers' concerns are being "progressively addressed". "We are seeing a steady progress on the income tax system. As of yesterday we had over 1.9 crore returns that have been filed using the new system.
Prachanda took the oath of office and secrecy from President Bhandari at an official ceremony at Shital Niwas.
Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan claimed that Modi held 13 pre-Budget consultation meetings which were attended by top industrialists, but to none of these meetings Sitharaman was invited.
Merely bringing down the government stake below 51% may not find any taker for the PSBs. The government must bring down its holding to at least 26%, recommends Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
A statement from the finance ministry said, 'it shall be the policy of the Sri Lankan government to suspend normal debt servicing...shall apply to amounts of affected debts outstanding on April 12, 2022'.
According to highly placed sources, the finance ministry is likely to extend ECLGS and other loan guarantee schemes for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), hospitality and tourism sector, and the health infrastructure beyond March 31, Business Standard has learnt. This is likely to be announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as part of her Budget speech on February 1.
A depreciating rupee, which briefly hit 80 to the dollar on Tuesday, may boost India's exports but price-inelastic imports of crude oil and gold would mean limited relief on the trade deficit, which clocked a record $26.2 billion in June. Due to global risk aversion on the back of geo-political tensions and aggressive policy tightening by the Fed, the dollar has appreciated against most currencies, including the rupee. And, with other currencies depreciating, India's comparative advantage in this respect may be limited.
Old ideas contained in the heads of old economists still dominate. That's not good, asserts T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
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