Price Waterhouse auditor S. Gopalakrishnan and Satyam’s former internal audit head V.S. Prabhakar Gupta are accused of conniving with B. Ramalinga Raju, the software company’s founder, in the Rs7,136 crore fraud that came to light in January 2008.
In what is seen as a bid to prevent further inflation spiral in the economy, the Finance Ministry has once again deferred the implementation of service tax levy on transport of goods by rail. The levy will now come into effect from January 1 next year.
The Finance Ministry has specified July 1 as the date from which service tax levy would be applicable on the eight new services brought under the tax net in Budget 2010-11. The eight new services include services of promoting, marketing or organising of games of chance, including lottery, health services undertaken by hospitals for employees of business organisation and health services provided under health insurance schemes offered by insurance schemes, services provided for maintenance of medical records of employees of a business entity and promoting a ‘brand’ of goods, services, events and business entity etc.
Corporate earnings from trading in certified emission reduction or carbon credits has caught the eyes of income-tax department. Tax authorities plan to closely look at companies found active in carbon trading after finding non-payment of taxes on such earnings.
Domestic and international air fares would rise by Rs 100 and Rs 500 respectively from July one with the government issuing a notification to bring air travel into the service tax ambit.
Those looking to book a house should do so before July 1. All sales of under-construction houses from July 1 will attract service tax with the finance ministry notifying tax on new services. Sale of immovable property will be deemed to be taxable unless entire consideration is paid after the issuance of completion certificate by a competent authority. However, service tax will be levied only on 25% of the gross sale value of property .
Sports events such as Indian Premier League will attract service tax but tax exemption has been allowed to tournaments and championships organised by certain bodies such as national sports federations or federations affiliated to them. These include School Games Federation of India, Association of Indian Universities and Olympic Committee of India, among others.
To check the menace of international cross border tax evasion, the Union Ministry of Finance has approved eight income tax units within the Indian missions overseas, Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said.The Union Finance Ministry has already set up two income tax overseas units within the Indian missions in Singapore and Mauritius, and recently approved eight more such units to facilitate seamless flow of tax-related information from abroad.
The Indian currency achieves another milestone, as the rupee is set to get a symbol for the first time in history.The Indian rupee will now sport a distinct identification symbol like the world’s major currencies – dollar, pound sterling, yen and the euro.
The government has decided to exempt distribution of electricity, services provided within ports and airports, international passengers in transit and those travelling to and from the North-East from the ambit of service tax while bringing in more services in the tax net from July 1.
