The President and members of the Council of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India express their utmost unhappiness on the passing of the ICWAI Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha on 12th Dec 2011, by which the name was proposed to be changed to the Institute of Cost Accountants of India. Our Institute strongly objects to the move by the sister professional body in interfering the activities of the another professional body to encourage foreign management accounting bodies to establish their presence in India to the detriment of Indian professionals.
The Reserve Bank today swung into action to check slide in rupee value against dollar and speculations. It has imposed restrictions with immediate effect on forward trading in the local currency by Foreign Institutional Investors and traders and capped banks exposure to the forex market. The Reserve Bank has also decided to withdraw the facility of re-booking forex contracts by companies and reduced across-the board exposure limits of banks which are authorised to deal in the foreign currency.
We would like to inform that the draft Bank Branch Auditors’ Panel for the year 2011-12 has been hosted at www.meficai.org and will be available till 20th December, 2011. In case of query, pl log a complaint at http://www.meficai.org/complaints/complaint_enrty_enter.jsp
The rupee breached the 54 mark to open at 54.20 against a dollar. The rupee had closed at 53.71 yesterday. Currently it is trading at 54.23. The general sense in the market is that the RBI does not want to throw good money after bad. The RBI data suggests that on two days in November, the Reserve Bank of India had intervened, but that had not help the rupee.
As the Rupee slides to new low against the dollar, NRIs are making a beeline to send the remittances back home. The leading bankers in Dubai say the expatriate Indians are opting for personal loans, cash advances through credit cards and salary advances to remit money back home. Some have even resorted to mortgaging properties to raise loans and send the money back to India. Some banks have also come out with attractive features like special money transfer rates and discounted charges to India.
The Government of India has, in exercise of the powers conferred by Sec. 28A of the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949, constituted a Quality Review Board to perform the following functions:- (a) to make recommendations to the Council with regard to the quality of services provided by the members of Institute; (b) to review the quality of services provided by the members of the Institute including audit services; and (c) to guide the members of the Institute to improve the quality of services and adherence to the various statutory and other regulatory requirements.
The Indirect Taxes Committee of the Institute has submitted the Pre-Budget Memorandum, 2012 relating to Indirect Taxes to the Ministry of Finance on 7th December, 2011. The Memorandum contains suggestions on various issues in the area of indirect taxes with a view to make tax laws simple, fair and transparent.
Anand Sharma, Commerce, Industry and Textiles Minister, clearly spelt out India’s position on some of the new ideas that have been proposed in the current WTO round as a possible way forward. Ruling out any freezing of the custom duties at the current levels (Tariff standstill) he stated that this amounted to the developing countries ceding their policy space and being denied any recognition for their autonomous liberalization. Besides unhinging the negotiated formula on tariff reductions it would force the developing countries to take on commitments going much beyond what was envisaged for at the end of the Doha Round.
The Employees’ State Insurance Corporation today in its 154th meeting approved its Annual Report and Annual Accounts for the year 2010-11. The Corporation also approved the Annual Report and Annual Accounts 2010-2011 of the Corporation for submitting to the Central Government and laying on the table of both Houses of the Parliament.
The strength of the Indian economy and the capabilities of the Indian Income-tax Department are globally accepted today. The training sector of the Department has matched steps in this journey through constant re-skilling, value additions and capability build ups. A sprawling global training centre to advance the cause of research and academic exercises in direct taxation is now proposed at Bangalore adjacent to the DTRTI campus in Jalahalli. The existing campus of DTRTI to be inaugurated by the FM on 18th Dec spells the first step in this futuristic venture.
