This tax treaty controversy is snowballing. First it was just the India Mauritius Double Tax Avoidance Treaty that was under a shadow and has been that way for a couple of years then the proposed Direct Tax Code released in August this year proposed a Treaty of Override Clause. Tax experts and India Inc are up in arms because if the code becomes the law, that law would override any existing treaty and its provisions, creating confusion and uncertainty for tax payers. And, then last week came the bombshell.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued guidelines on ‘Fair Practice Code for Lenders’ which are required to be framed by Banks/Financial Institutions/ Non Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) duly adopted by their respective Boards. These guidelines which are revised periodically, inter-alia, stipulate that loan application forms in respect of all categories of loans irrespective of the amount of loan sought by the borrower should be comprehensive.
Attention : Candidates and Voters for the forthcoming elections.It has been brought to my notice that the Election Code of Conduct evolved by the Council is being violated by organizing parties and other programmes under one pretext or the other.
In continuation of the series of previous two articles, elaborating the difficulties in getting the refund claim under GTA service and Port services, we in this article are attempting to present the problems existing in the Service tax refund mechanism under Technical testing and analysis Services (Section 65[105][zzh]). This complete state of affairs is humorously picturisead by the way of poems and conversation between Johnny (an assessee) and his father. This Endeavour is just to bring out the problems faced by exporters.
In this fourth article we are attempting to present the grounds on which departmental authorities are disallowing the refund claims as related to Specialized cleaning services (namely disinfecting, exterminating, sterilizing or fumigating of containers) availed by the exporters (Section 65[105][zzzd]). This complete state of affairs is humorously picturisead by the way of poems and conversation between Johnny (an assessee) and his father. This Endeavour is just to bring out the problems faced by exporters.
In exercise of the powers conferred by clauses (zb), (zc), (zd), (ze), (zf), (zg), (zh), (zi) and (zj) of sub-section (2) of Section 55 of the Special Economic Zones Act, 2005 (28 of 2005) read with Section 31, the Central Government hereby makes the following rules, namely :—
The Reserve Bank of India has asked all banks and financial institutions to furnish a suspicious transaction report to the Financial Intelligence Unit-India within seven days of such a transaction, said a notification from the central bank on Thursday. “The report must be furnished within seven days of arriving at a conclusion that a transaction, including attempted transaction, whether or not made in cash, or a series of transaction integrally connected are of suspicious nature,” RBI said.
This article summarizes a recent ruling of the Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) [2009-TIOL-707-ITAT-MUM] in the case of Cipla Investments Ltd. (Taxpayer) on taxability of waiver of loan. The ITAT held that since the loan received was on capital account, its subsequent waiver too was on capital account. Hence, the loan waived was not liable to be taxed as profits and gains from its business (business income) under the provisions of the Indian Tax Law (ITL). The ITAT also held that waiver would not be taxable as business income if a taxpayer was not allowed deduction of the loan amount earlier.
As per section 17 of the Indian Registration Act, 1908 any documents related to immovable property exceeding worth Rs.100/- needs to be compulsorily registered. This being a central Act and is being implemented by the state government as per the special power given to the state government. Further, the state government is also empowered to levy the registration fees by issuing necessary notifications. The registration fee is charged as a service charge and not as a part of taxes to increase the revenue.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) advisory to banks for limiting their mutual fund (MF) exposure has prodded the lenders to put in place a detailed investment norm. While large banks were capping their MF exposure at 20 per cent of total investment, smaller banks were limiting such investments to Rs 1,000 crore, executives at public sector banks said.
