The government has asked the I-T department to soon process refund claims up to Rs 25,000 for every assessee whose tax is deducted at source (TDS) for 2007-08. “The Income- Tax Department has instructed the field formations to accept the TDS-payer’s claim, with certain exceptions . where the refund computed does not exceed Rs 25,000,” a Finance Ministry official said.
The government is considering a proposal to double the income tax exemption limit on housing loans to Rs 3 lakh from the current level of Rs 1.5 lakh, according to government sources. The proposal is being discussed by the committee of secretaries that was set up in the wake of the global financial crisis affecting the Indian economy. Industry lobby groups have been urging the government to raise the limit as it will reduce the cost of borrowing on home loans.
Corporate India and retail borrowers may soon get loans at cheaper rates and on easier terms. The Reserve Bank of India has advised banks to cut rates further, citing fall in inflation, easy liquidity and lower cost of funds.
The government will be preventing Chartered Accountants from offering consultancy and advisory services to the companies which hire them for auditing their accounts. This is being done to lend greater credibility to company accounts. The statutory auditors, who vet the financial accounts of a company, will be restricted from providing their corporate clients services such as investment management, actuarial services and investment banking.
Apex chartered accountant institute ICAI will help the 155-year-old Indian Railways upgrade its accounting practices. “We will help the Railways upgrade its accounting system and make it look like a corporate account, fully based on accrual accounting system,” Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAI) President Ved Jain told PTI.
More than 8,000 officers of the Income Tax department across the country have become tech-savvy as the government has provided them with brand new laptops under an incentive scheme. The laptops have the advanced Windows Vista Business operating system with an encrypting file feature, a password protected shared documents folder, a two GB Random Access Memory (RAM), four USB drives and an extended battery backup system.
The Government of Maharashtra has issued Trade Circular No. 41 T of 2008 dated 18.12.2008 allowing the submission of VAT Audit Reports for the Financial Year 2007-2008 in old Form No.704 also.
Have a look at a very small utility to verify the correctness of VAT and CST Registration Numbers under Maharashtra VAT Act, 2002.This small MVAT Registration Numbers validation utility can be used as atool for the VAT Audit to check the VAT and CST Registration Nos of the parties as the utility checks whether the numbers are in the proper format or not.
It is strange that while reducing peak rate of excise duty from 14% to 10%, central government did not reduce the peak rate of service tax from 12% to 10% or 8%. After the reduction of excise duty with effect from 7-12-2008, now the rate of excise duty on packaged software will be 8% whereas rate of service tax on customized software will be 12%. [See excise notification no. 49/2006 CE dated 30/12/2006 as amended by notification no. 58/2008 CE dated 07/12/2008]
The CBDT, Chairman Shri N.B. Singh said that the decision of the Mumbai High Court in favour of the Income Tax Department in the case relating to transfer of securities of Vodafone Essar Limited has strengthened the hands of the Income Tax Department.
