Insurance policyholders could be in for a bonanza once the new Direct Taxes Code, or DTC, comes into effect, as insurance firms may pass on the tax benefit proposed in the bill. The new income-tax law tabled in Parliament has exempted the policyholders’ fund, the investment corpus created from premium payments, from the 12.5% tax on income earned.

The government is confident the proposed Direct Taxes Code (DTC) will increase the income tax base, which currently stands at around 3.25 crore, as well as boost economic growth and equity. “We do hope that tax base will widen… Minimum exemptions will lead to higher tax-GDP ratio,” Revenue Secretary Sunil Mitra said here.

Salaried taxpayers may have less kitty for holidays from April 2012, with the government proposing to scrap tax incentives on leave travel allowance in the new direct tax regime DTC. The Direct Taxes Code (DTC) bill, which was tabled in the Lok Sabha yesterday, seeks to do away with leave travel concession (LTC) from its list of exemption. “LTC was one of the popular elements given to employees by the government.

Special Economic Zones are likely to lose their sheen, with Direct Taxes Code Bill proposing to introduce minimum alternate tax at 20 per cent on the book profit of developers as well as units from April 1, 2012.

The Direct Taxes Code (DTC) Bill proposes to raise the exemption limit for imposing wealth tax to Rs 1 crore from Rs 15 lakh at present, a move that will help a lot of taxpayers avoid the levy. The Rs 1 crore limit proposed in the Direct Taxes Code Bill, however, is much less that the exemption of Rs 50 crore proposed in the original draft.

The new tax code offers a little extra in terms of your take-home salary by tweaking tax brackets and increasing tax deductions. But you will have to rework your investing habits a bit in the financial year 2012-13 (when the Direct Tax Code gets functional) and change the way you invest in order to get the maximum benefit that the government plans to offer.

The Supreme Court will hear on September 10 the impleadment petition filed by the Forex Derivatives Consumers Forum along with the Special Leave Petition filed by Fixed Income Money Market and Derivatives Association of India (FIMMDA). Forex Derivatives Consumers Forum is a registered association of exporters from across the country, a majority of them from Tamil Nadu’s Tirpur district.

Once the Direct Taxes Code (DTC) 2010 get approved by both houses of the Indian parliament, and receives the President’s assent, it would be enacted as law. Significantly, while it was earlier envisaged that as per the original proposal the DTC would be effective from 1 April 2011, the start date of DTC 2010 has now been deferred by a year to 1 April 2012.

DTC Billproposes to tax short-term capital gains arising from stocks and mutual funds at half the marginal rate.So, if your marginal tax rate is 30 per cent, you will pay a short-term capital gains tax at 15 per cent. As far as long-term capital gains tax goes, it has been kept out of the tax net, subject to the payment of securities transaction tax (STT).

The government has proposed to exempt income of charitable and not-for-profit organisations up to R1 lakh from tax and levy a tax of 15 per cent on all income above that ceiling. The Direct Taxes Code (DTC) Bill introduced in Parliament on Monday said the provisions would not apply to specified organisations. Charitable activity does not include the carrying on of any activity in the nature of trade, commerce or business or any activity of rendering any service for a fee except where the gross receipts during the financial year from such activity exceed Rs. 10 lakhs.