The finance ministry has set up two committees of state finance ministers which would rework rate slabs, review GST exempt items and identify potential evasion sources. Four years after the roll out of the national Goods and Services Tax (GST), which replaced the complex indirect tax structure, the centre and states have started work on moving towards a "simpler rate structure in GST" by reviewing the current rate slabs, including special rates and merger of rate slabs. The Group of Ministers (GoM) on rate rationalisation would also review items under inverted duty structure to help minimise refund payout, and review the supply of goods and services exempt under GST with an objective to expand the tax base and eliminate breaking of input tax credit (ITC) chain.
From defending the shock announcement of demonetisation to spearheading the remonetisation drive that included the cumbersome process of printing and supplying new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes, his calm composure brought a sense of serenity to an otherwise chaotic situation.
Starting today, Modi and top officials in the Prime Minister's Office will be briefed by various central ministries and departments on their plans as well as agenda for the next five years. They will also apprise the PMO of the work they have done so far in realising the agenda of government's second term in office.
The bill to amend payment of gratuity Act in order to double the ceiling of tax-free gratuity to Rs 20 lakh, would soon be placed before the Union Cabinet for approval.
Officers have been particularly urged to ensure that during field enforcement drive and visits, no taxpayer is overreached or troubled.
Airline told to transfer non-core assets, subsidiaries to special purpose vehicle
The finance ministry also said the maximum funding will be Rs 400 crore for any single project that will be seeking assistance from the 'special window' for completion of the 1,508 projects comprising about 4.58 lakh units.
The finance ministry has put out an advertisement seeking applications from eligible candidates for the post and gave just two weeks against the usual practice of three months. Further, the tenure of the watchdog is again being extended to five years.
There is no proposal to modify income tax returns forms, finance ministry sources clarified when asked to comment on news reports that the purported statement of financial transactions expansion would result in the filing of high-value financial transactions in ITR by the taxpayers themselves.
With the reduction, term deposits of 1-3 years will now fetch an interest rate of 5.5 per cent from the existing 6.9 per cent.
Banks will also consider requests from MSMEs for restructuring their stressed standard assets. So far, only 25 per cent of the around 1 million eligible MSMEs have taken benefit of the RBI's special dispensation.
A K Bhattacharya lists three reasons why Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will most likely present a full Budget on February 1, 2019.
The government is working towards further review and simplification of the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy to facilitate the proposed initial public offering (IPO) of the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) secretary Anurag Jain said on Thursday. The final decision will be taken by the Cabinet. The industry department is working together with the finance ministry's department of financial services (DFS) and department of investment and public asset management (DIPAM) towards a successful listing of the life insurer on the domestic bourses, which is expected to be the largest in India.
Britain's Cairn Energy has secured a French court order to seize 20 Indian govt properties to recover arbitration award, it is learnt.
Sri Lanka's new Finance Minister Ali Sabry on Tuesday resigned, a day after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed him after sacking his brother Basil Rajapaksa amidst the island nation's worst economic crisis.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the government has begun an exercise to assess the impact of the pandemic on the economy and likely contraction in GDP, even as she did not rule out the possibility of another stimulus to boost growth.
'If the current mood in North Block, headquarters of the finance ministry, is anything to go by, the government will now keep a closer watch on all kinds of schemes and projects undertaken by different central ministries. 'The next six months will determine which central schemes will have to be wound up and which ones will survive the axe,' says A K Bhattacharya.
Faced with prospect of its assets across the globe being seized just like Pakistan and Venezuela, the government decided to scrap retrospective taxation but the international embarrassment could have been avoided had 'attached' shares of Britain's Cairn Energy Plc not been sold, according to tax and legal experts. On Thursday, the government introduced a Bill in Parliament to scrap the tax rule that gave the tax department power to go 50 years back and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India. The 2012 legislation was used to levy a cumulative of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of tax on 17 entities, including UK telecom giant Vodafone, but substantial punitive action was taken only in the case of Cairn.
The government on Wednesday announced the appointment of veteran banker K V Kamath as chairperson of the newly set up Rs 20,000 crore development finance institution NaBFID to catalyse investment in the funds-starved infrastructure sector. Parliament had in March cleared the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) Bill 2021 to support the development of long-term non-recourse infrastructure financing in India, including the development of the bonds and derivatives markets necessary for infrastructure financing.
Funds parked by Indian individuals and firms in Swiss banks, including through India-based branches and other financial institutions, jumped to a 14-year-high of 3.83 billion Swiss francs (over Rs 30,500 crore) in 2021 on a sharp surge in holdings via securities and similar instruments while customer deposits rose as well, annual data from Switzerland's central bank showed on Thursday.
Every bank offers a different slab of minimum balance to customers, based on which 'free services' are provided
The Economic Survey released before next year's Budget could become a single volume, reverting to the practice followed till FY14. "There is so much to write about the Indian economy's performance in the past year. "Most of the exciting themes will be covered in what used to be considered Part II," said a senior government official who is part of the preparations for the Survey.
Amid concerns over misleading claims of huge returns on cryptocurrency investment, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday chaired a meeting on the way forward on the issue, with government sources asserting that such unregulated markets cannot be allowed to become avenues for "money laundering and terror financing".
If Sebi and RBI remain quiet about this brazenly illegal activity, will someone in the finance ministry or the NITI Aayog take a closer look, asks Debashis Basu.
Armed with necessary macro and micro growth drivers, India is on its way to becoming the fastest growing major economy in the world, a finance ministry report said. Rapid vaccination and teeming festivities will push India's ongoing recovery resulting in narrowing of demand-supply mismatches and greater employment opportunities, as per the monthly Economic Review prepared by the ministry.
The annual earnings of a non-executive chairman of a PSB is capped at Rs 10 lakh, inclusive of fees for attending board meetings. This is way below the compensation of the chairman of any private bank, reveals Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Under the proposed mechanism, the finance ministry has said banks will notify customers when someone tries to deposit money in their accounts, a government official said.
The government is set to ask PSBs to expeditiously introduce repo-rate linked products "to step up affordable credit".
It is also likely to assume a deflator of around 4 per cent. That could take the nominal GDP outlook for FY21 to around 10 per cent. It is this nominal GDP forecast on the basis of which the finance ministry is calculating key Budget targets like the fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP and tax revenue growth for the coming year.
A large number of officials and support staff, who are directly associated with the Budget making and printing process, are now required to stay in the ministry and remain cut off from their families till the presentation of the Budget in the Lok Sabha.
The ministry of finance will kickstart its massive budgetary exercise from October 15.
Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia vacates his post on November 30 and Expenditure Secretary Ajay Narayan Jha, the second seniormost bureaucrat in the finance ministry, retires on January 31, the day before Jaitley presents the 2019-20 interim budget.
A banker from Jaipur in Rajasthan tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what he would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
That such a deal can be greeted with celebration in the camps of both buyer and seller speaks volumes about the airline and its recent history, explains T N Ninan.
This, said Sitharaman, would remove the possibility of unauthorised communication "and consequent harassment", which was a cause of concern for bankers.
"7.75 per cent savings bonds scheme notified. Would replace 8 per cent scheme. Will be effective from 10th January. This sequenced notifications and gap of a week was necessary to avoid overlap in cheques realisations," Economic Affairs Secretary S C Garg said in a tweet.
Other decisions piled up include rationalisation of GST rate slabs, correction of inverted duty on certain items and inclusion of petroleum products.
The Indian economy remains on track to regain its position as the world's fastest-growing major economy after official estimates on Friday put the expansion at a tempered 9.2 per cent this fiscal amid concerns over the impact of a resurgent virus on the fragile recovery. The growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) of 9.2 per cent in April 2021 to March 2022 fiscal (FY 2021-22) given by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in its first advance estimate compares with 9.5 per cent expansion forecast by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last month. The economy had contracted by 7.3 per cent in the previous financial year.
Tuesday's meeting at the PM's residence, attended by all the five secretaries in the finance ministry besides top officials of other economic ministries and NITI Aayog, cleared a five-year vision plan for the government to make India a $5-trillion economy by 2024.
The panel was informed that the economic impact of the second wave of viral infection was "asynchronous in its onset and wider in its spread particularly in rural hinterland", a source said.
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