Income Tax Exemption

A Parliamentary panel scrutinising the Direct Taxes Code - DTC Bill has suggested raising the income tax exemption limit to 3 lakh rupees from the present 1.8 lakhs. It has also suggested hiking of deduction on savings to 2.5 lakh rupees. Full Article

Terming cooperatives as one of the strongest pillars of Indian agriculture, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar today said he has asked Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to consider income tax exemption to Indian cooperatives. "I have written a letter to the Finance Minister to look into the issue of I-T exemption to cooperative societies," Pawar said at a national level meeting with the state cooperative ministers here. Full Article

Direct Taxes Code Bill, 2009, could soon set the tone for all our future wealth-creation decisions. If enacted, the bill will not only change the amount of tax you pay, but also transform how you invest, borrow and spend your money. While most tax breaks may be taken away, the process of filing taxes will be simpler. Full Article

Health-care costs are skyrocketing and are going beyond the reach of a common man. The need of the hour is to bring this sector under different schedule with a special status and declare some very important tax rebates to this sector to reduce the ultimate cost to the patient: Full Article

The government is exploring an increase in the income-tax exemption limit for individuals to compensate for the high recent inflation, but revenue considerations and the fact that the limit was hiked sharply in 2008-09 could force it to maintain status quo or give just a token hike. The proposal has figured in the preliminary discussions , as the policymakers debate ways to give some relief to households from high inflation. Full Article

A dozen private nursing homes and hospitals today lost their approval granted under Section 17(2) of the Income Tax Act on the basis of an assessment conducted by the Department of Income Tax, Chandigarh. According to Chief Commissioner (Chandigarh region) P K Chopra, this has been done after it came to the notice that hospitals and nursing homes reviewed were not employing adequate number of medical staff (doctors and nurses) required under the prescribed rule. Full Article

The short question that arises for consideration is whether blending and packing of tea for export in the industrial unit in the Special Economic Zone amount to manufacture or production of an article qualifying for exemption under Section 10A of the Act, that is, during the period prior to introduction of "blending" as "manufacture" with effect from 10.2.2006. Full Article

The model legislation for the introduction of goods and services tax (GST) will have a provision for registration of individuals and companies which pay the tax.The registration will be done through a uniform PAN-linked business identification number. The Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance had recently sent a proposal to state governments for making the 10-digit permanent account number (PAN) the starting point for registering GST payees. Full Article