The cost of educating our children is rising consistently. It’s a matter of concern for all of us. One relief is the tax benefit provided for spending on children’s education. The Income Tax Act provides a direct deduction on account of fees paid for the education of dependent children. The act also provides for deduction on account of interest on loans taken for higher education of children.

The free trade agreement (FTA) between India and Malaysia will come into force from July 1, giving Indian professionals like accountants, engineers and doctors access to the key South-East Asian nation. In addition, exports of items of considerable interest to India, like basmati rice, mangoes, eggs, trucks, motorcycles and cotton garments, will attract lower or no duty in Malaysia with the implementation of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), according to a statement of the Commerce Ministry issued today.

At a time when the government is accelerating efforts to strengthen the country’s taxation system , India and rich countries’ club OECD will deliberate on challenges to international tax rules on Monday. Co-operation in global tax matters have gained prominence , especially after the G-20 crackdown on tax havens, which are being used to park unaccounted money worth billions of dollars. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will address a seminar on ‘Adapting Tax Systems and International Tax Rules to the New Global Environment: A Shared Challenge for India and OECD’ .

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Wednesday said account details would be available online from July 1. You can watch the account balance of your PF online from July 1, Assistant PF Commissioner Kanchan Roy said at an interactive session at Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The income-tax department is preparing to send another Letter Rogatory to Swiss authorities, seeking details of Pune-based stud farm owner Hasan Ali Khan’s Swiss Bank accounts . As part of this exercise, it has asked the Enforcement Directorate to provide a copy of the statements given to it by Khan, accused of siphoning off $8 billion to an unreported Swiss bank account. Along with the statement of Khan, the I-T department has also asked ED to part with a copy of the statement of Kashinath Tapuria, brother of Priyamvada Birla and a business associate of Khan.

Yielding under pressure, Mauritius has for the first time provided banking information about a person being investigated by the Income Tax Department (ITD) for tax evasion and money laundering. They (Mauritius) have given information related to a person being probed by ITD who had remitted funds from that country to India, an official told PTI.

The United States may experience reverse brain drain as thousands of Indian IT professionals contemplate returning to India, according to a survey conducted by Corp-Corp.com , a US-based technology job portal.

Amid concerns over high inflation and the possibility of hike in key policy rates , Reserve Bank governor D Subbarao today called on Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to discuss the state of economy ahead of the apex bank’s monetary policy next week. “As a standard practice I had come to review the macro economic situation with Finance Minister and senior officers ahead of the policy review ,” Subbarao told reporters after meeting Mukherjee.

As many as 57 Indian companies including Reliance Industries , State Bank of India and Oil & Natural Gas Corp. figure in The Forbes Global 2000 list of public companies based on their rankings for sales, profits, assets and market value. Reliance with sales of $45.3 bn is ranked 121st in the list with three public State Bank of India Group (136, $29.1 bn), Oil & Natural Gas Corp. (172, 22.6 bn) and Indian Oil (243, $52.1 bn) taking the next three places among the Indian firms.

The G-20 on Friday announced that International Monetary Fund (IMF) would review policies of the world’s seven largest economies, including India and China , with the objective of rectifying flaws before they imperil growth. The US, Japan, Germany, France and Britain are the other five countries that influence the global economy.