The new Companies Bill, which seeks to replace the legislation enacted way back in 1952, is likely to be approved by Parliament in the monsoon session, corporate secretary R Bandyopadhay said on Thursday. “With the speed at which the parliamentary standing committee is proceeding with the discussions, I am hopeful that the Bill would be passed in the monsoon session.
Shri Anand Sharma, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, has stated that the FDI inflows for the month of December, 2009 have been of the order of US $ 1.542 billion. Addressing a press conference here today he informed that this is an increase of 13%, in US $ terms, over inflows in the month of December, 2008 (previous year), which were US $ 1.362 billion.
Addressing the Board of Approval members, the Chairman informed that so far 571 formal approvals have been granted for setting up of SEZs out of which 348 have been notified. He further informed that over Rs. 1,28,385 crore have been invested in the Special Economic Zones during this short span of time and direct employment of the order of 4,90,358 persons has been generated in the Special Economic Zones. During the first three quarters of current financial year, total export of Rs. 1,51,786 crore approximately has been made from SEZs.
Shri Salman Khurshid, Minister of Corporate Affairs, launched the electronic File Tracking System (FTS) in his Ministry here today. He electronically generated the first File No. under this system, which has been developed and maintained by National Informatics Centre (NIC).
Over the past two months, at least a dozen senior officers of the Income-Tax department, belonging to the elite Indian Revenue Service (IRS), have opted for voluntary retirement, a government scheme that allows them to quit before the statutory retirement age. These officers are likely to end up in the private sector, most likely as consultants, to get around rules that prevent government employees from working within a year of quitting.
The Direct Taxes Code 2009 is now on the back burner. The Union finance ministry has veered round to the view that its bold move to reform direct taxes should be subjected to further scrutiny. Contrary to earlier expectations, therefore, the Direct Taxes Code 2009 will not be presented to Parliament as a Bill along with the Union Budget for 20010-11 on February 26.
The government has allowed the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), under the commerce ministry, to clear foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals of up to Rs 1,200 crore. At present, all project proposals that involve investment of above Rs 600 crore are put up before the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) for approval.
The Memorandum of Understanding between ICAI and Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University, Nashik has been signed by the President, ICAI and the Vice-Chancellor of the University on 10th February, 2010 at New Delhi. The MoU envisages members of the ICAI and the Students will be eligible for admission to MBA, M.Com, BBA and B.Com courses and will be eligible for exemption in certain papers based on the stage(s) of the Chartered Accountancy Examinatioin passed. Details of the course structure, papers wise exemption and the fees payable are given in the attached annexure.
Corporate India will have to shell out an additional Rs 21,000 crore if the 2010-11 Budget increases the excise duty by 2 per cent. A study by the Business Standard Research Bureau shows that 1,278 manufacturing companies (excluding oil and gas) accounted for 8.13 per cent, or Rs 86,314 crore of the gross revenue for the year 2008-09. So, a 2 per cent increase in the excise duty on gross sales of Rs 10,64,865 crore will fetch Rs 21,200 crore more revenue for the government.
Speedy resolution of tax disputes and certainty in tax aspects has been a long-standing demand of foreign companies doing business with/in India. The Indian Government finally reacted to this demand and announced alternate dispute resolution mechanism in the form of a Dispute Resolution Panel (DRP) in the last budget.
