State of Tamil Nadu & ANR. Vs. India Cements Ltd. & ANR. -The Supreme Court last week dismissed the appeal of the Tamil Nadu government which denied sales tax benefits to India Cements Ltd. The high court had held that the cement firm was entitled to the benefit of deferral of sales tax as claimed by it under the interest free sales tax deferral scheme.
Circular No. 17/2011 Ministry of Corporate Affairs has taken a “Green Initiative in the Corporate Governance” by allowing paperless compliances by the Companies after considering sections 2, 4, 5, and 81 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 for legal validity of compliances under Companies Act through electronic mode. Section 53 of the Companies Act, 1956 provides service of documents under ‘Certificate of posting’ as one of the accepted mode of service. Whereas the Department of posts has recently discontinued the postal facility under ‘Certificate of posting’ vide their letter dated 23.02.201 1. The Information Technology Act, 2000 also permits service of documents etc., in electronic mode.
Section 53 of the Companies Act, 1956 provides service of documents under ‘Certificate of posting’ as one of the accepted mode of service. Whereas the Department of posts has recently discontinued the postal facility under ‘Certificate of posting’ vide their letter dated 23.02.2011. The Information Technology Act, 2000 also permits service of documents etc., in electronic mode.
RPCD.SME & NFS. BC. No. 62/06.11.01/2010-11 – In para 43 of the Union Budget Speech of 2011-12, it has been proposed to liberalise the existing scheme of interest subvention of 1 per cent on housing loans by extending it to housing loan upto Rs.15 lakh where the cost of the house does not exceed Rs.25 lakh from the present limit of Rs.10 lakh and Rs.20 lakh respectively.
It may be noted that initially transactions relating to securitization and reconstruction of financial assets and those relating to mortgage by deposit of title deeds to secure any loan or advances granted by banks and financial institutions, as defined under the SARFAESI Act, are to be registered in the Central Registry. The records maintained by the Central Registry will be available for search by any lender or any other person desirous of dealing with the property. Availability of such records would prevent frauds involving multiple lending against the security of same property as well as fraudulent sale of property without disclosing the security interest over such property. It may be noted that under the provisions of Section 23 of the SARFAESI Act , particulars of any charge creating security interest over property is required to be filed with the Registry within 30 days from the date of creation.
The Supreme Court today banned the employment of children in circuses and directed the government to rescue children employed in the sector and formulate a rehabilitation programme for them. A bench headed by Justice Dalveer Bhandari said that in order to protect the fundamental rights of children, it is imperative that the government issues notification to prohibit employment of children in this sector.
I had given a clarification two days back in an article titled ‘PVAT Act 2005 – Declared Goods except wheat and paddy will be taxable @ 4.4% w.e.f 08/04/2011’ that surchage is also applicable on declared goods other than Paddy and wheat, since the ceiling rate of tax was enhanced from 4% to 5% by the Central govt in the Budget of 2011-12.
Siemens Aktiencesellschaft v. DCIT – ITAT Mumbai held that royalty received by the taxpayer was in pursuance to agreement entered into before 1976 and therefore not covered under Section 1 15A of the Act. The Tribunal has meticulously examined concepts such as novation/recession/modification and alteration as provided in the Contract Act to analyse the substance of the agreement and in conclusion rule that the 1981 agreement was an extension of 1974 agreement.
A top Income Tax official has said that the diamond trade has one of the highest prevalence of black money, with investigations revealing that books in the sector are “completely manufactured”. “(In) certain areas like real estate or diamond trade there is a lot of circulation of black money…but in the case of diamond merchants, the books are completely manufactured,” Director General of Income Tax (Investigations) B P Gaur told reporters here late last evening.
Finance Ministry is likely to finalise the proposed changes in the takeover code on mergers and acquisitions after a meeting with industry and other stakeholders tomorrow. The Takeover Regulations Advisory Committee chaired by Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu will discuss the amendments in the code as proposed by the C Achuthan headed Sebi panel, a Finance Ministry official said.
