Notification No. 24/2012-Income Tax Section 90 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 – Double Taxation Agreement – Agreement for Avoidance of Double Taxation and Prevention of fiscal evasion with foreign countries – Norway. Whereas an Agreement between the Republic of India and the Kingdom of Norway for the avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with respect to Taxes on Income and on Capital was signed at New Delhi on the 2nd day of February, 2011;
Circular No. 159/10/2012-ST A doubt has been raised whether service tax is leviable on the audit fees collected by the CAG for conducting directly, audit of corporations. Reportedly some field formations are inclined to take a view that such ‘audit fee’ collected by the CAG is leviable to service tax under the authority of the inclusive portion of the definition of practicing chartered accountant read with the relevant definition of the taxable service [Section 65(83) read with section 65(105)(s) of Finance Act, 1994].
RPCD.CO.RRB.BC.No. 88/03.05.33/2011-12 In view of the timelines attached to the implementation of EBT for routing MGNREGA wages and social security benefits including proposed cash transfers in respect of subsidies on Kerosene, LPG and Fertilisers, you are requested to ensure opening of Aadhaar Enabled Bank Accounts (AEBA) of all the beneficiaries including those residing in villages with less than 2000 population.
State Level Bankers’ Committees (SLBCs) are now mandated to prepare a roadmap covering all unbanked villages of population less than 2000 and notionally allot these villages to banks for providing banking services, in a time-bound manner. The notional allotment is only intended to ensure that all villages are provided with at least one banking outlet for providing banking services and does not deny or bar any other bank from operating in these areas based on the available business potential.
Please refer to the paragraphs 121-123 of the Monetary Policy Statement 2012-13, wherein we have emphasized the importance of implementing IT and IS Governance structure in banks. It is expected that all banks adopt appropriate frameworks for both IT and IS Governance and put in place the proper structure and systems. Accordingly, we request you to take up suitable steps at your end in this regard and ensure that the issues relating to governance, information security and business continuity get adequate attention at the Board level. In this regard, the document prepared by IDRBT on the ‘Organizational Structure for IT in the Indian Banking Sector’ can serve as a reference manual.
With a view to enhancing the credit flow to the export sector, it has been decided to enhance the eligible limit of the ECR facility for scheduled banks (excluding RRBs) from 15 per cent of the outstanding export credit eligible for refinance to 50 per cent, effective fortnight beginning June 30, 2012. This will provide additional liquidity support to banks of over `300 billion. The rate of interest charged on the ECR facility will continue to be the prevailing repo rate under the LAF, which is currently 8.0 per cent.
Attention is invited to paragraphs 81 to 83 of the Monetary Policy Statement 2012-13 announced on April 17, 2012 with regard to home loans on floating interest rates. The Committee on Customer Service in Banks (Chairman: M. Damodaran) had observed that foreclosure charges levied by banks on prepayment of home loans are resented upon by home loan borrowers across the board especially since banks were found to be hesitant in passing on the benefits of lower interest rates to the existing borrowers in a falling interest rate scenario. As such, foreclosure charges are seen as a restrictive practice deterring the borrowers from switching over to cheaper available source.
Uploading of BRC data by banks can be done at any time and it should be electronically transmitted on a daily basis. Electronic issuance of BRC has started with effect from 05.06.2012. Physical submission of BRC would continue concurrently for one month from 05.06.2012. BRCs which have been issued manually after 01.04.2012 shall be converted in the digital (XML) format by the banks and uploaded on DGFT server.
Safeguards, conditions and limitations.- Refund of CENVAT Credit under rule 5 of the said rules, shall be subjected to the following safeguards, conditions and limitations, namely:-
The complaints received by SEBI against SEs and Depositories shall be electronically sent through SCORES. You are advised to view the pending complaints at http://scores.gov.in/admin and submit the Action Taken Report (ATR) along with supporting documents electronically in SCORES. Please note that updation of action taken shall not be possible with physical ATRs. Hence, submission of physical ATR shall not be accepted for complaints lodged in SCORES.
