Haryana Govt. notified declaration form for SEZ dealers purchasing goods at zero rate of tax

CENTRAL SALES TAX & VAT/INDIAN ACTS & RULES : Haryana Value Added Tax (Second Amendment) Rules, 2013 - Amendment in rules 2, 19, 56, 79, Form Vat-B3, Form Vat C-3, Form VAT-D2 & Form VAT D3 and insertion of rule 21A

Haryana Govt. relaxes obligation of dealers to issue sale invoices for cash sales of up to Rs 1,000

CENTRAL SALES TAX & VAT/INDIAN ACTS & RULES : Haryana Value Added Tax (Amendment) Rules, 2014 – Amendment in rule 54

ITAT Upheld levy of penalty for tax audit default as assessee failed to furnish bona-fide reasons fo

IT: Where value of speculative share transactions exceeded prescribed limit for tax audit under section 44AB, levy of penalty under section 271B for tax audit default was justified

HC upheld rejection of fourth adjournment sought by assessee after three successful adjournments

Excise & Customs : Where assessee was not serious and was seeking repeated adjournments, there was no fault on part of Tribunal in not allowing fourth adjournment; however, considering facts, one more change could be given to assessee

Kbp Holds Rally Against Government Policies Today

The Kissan Board Pakistan (KBP) central Punjab is holding a big protest rally against the government's anti agriculture polices, high electricity tariff, and privatisation of the essential state enterprises on the G.T. road near river Chenab Bridge at 11 am today. The rally will be led by KBP Chief Sardar Zafar Hussein Khan Information secretary Khalid Ranjha, district leader Soofi Muhammad and Chaudhry Muhammad Riaz. Farmers of Sialkot, Gujarat and Gujranwala districts are participating in the rally.

President KBP central Punjab Noor Elahi Tatla said here on Sunday that the government had adopted anti-agriculture policies in case of strategic wheat, cotton, rice, sugarcane in particular and entire agriculture in general. He alleged that the influential owners of the sugar mills belonging to ruling and the opposition parties had not paid billions of rupees to the poor sugarcane growers for their produce. The growers had been running from pillar to the post and approaching the management of the sugar mills, the cane commissioner and the local administration demanding payment of their dues but had failed to get their hard earned money. Their patience is touching the limit, he added.

He said the wheat crop is being harvested but the government has not yet announced the upward support price despite tremendous increase in cost of production over the years. Besides the government has also not fixed the flat rate of electricity for the irrigation tube-wells to give relief to the farmers which is more dangerous than the drone attack on the rural economy.

He said that the rulers had bought the potato vegetables and fruits and other agriculture commodities from the farmers on cheap rates with the help of the administration. They are now exporting these commodities and earning huge profits without passing on any benefit to the growers. He said that the farmers and growers are convinced the government has increased the cost of production of essential food items and commodities by levying general sales on the agriculture in puts.

He said the farming community had been strongly protesting against the government's move to give India status of Most Favourite Nation (MFN) whereas India is an enemy country, which had been hatching conspiracies to stop supply of rivers' water to Pakistan and ruin its agriculture. On the other hand, our rulers were asking the Pakistani growers to compete with the Indian farmers who were provided electricity at extremely cheap prices and subsidies on diesel while in Pakistan farmers were facing long load shedding and expensive agricultural inputs.

Listing demands of the farmers Tatla said that the government should immediately arrange payment to the sugarcane growers by the sugar mills, announce support price of the wheat, reduce tariff of electricity and provide same incentives to the farmers which are given to the Indian farmers by the Indian government to make prices of agriculture commodities competitive before giving MFN status to India.

Source:- brecorder.com

Food Companies Add Value To Exports

A lot is happening across the spectrum of food business. Output and local sales of food items are growing, boosting profits of companies. Besides, food export earnings are up and import bills down, creating a food trade surplus.

Food exports — at $3.15 billion in July-February FY14 (8MFY14) — are 9pc higher than those in 8MFY13. On the other hand, food imports are down 10pc to $2.73 billion over this period, resulting in a food trade surplus of $420 million.

This surplus has emerged due to many factors. Most noteworthy are the increase in average export prices of rice, fruits and vegetables; growth in seafood exports after the lifting of the EU ban in August 2013; and a big jump in export of oilseeds, nuts and kernels, both in terms of volumes and forex earnings.

“It’s for the first time that the country exported about 50,000 tonnes of oilseeds, nuts and kernel in just eight months of this fiscal, and earned in excess of $67 million, mainly because of higher sunflower and canola oilseed output,” points out one leading exporter.

In the year-ago period, the export totaled 17,000 tonnes, and earnings were just below $21.5 million.Earnings from Basmati rice rose 6pc to $412 million, even though export volumes shrank 9pc. Similarly, forex earnings through exports of non-Basmati rice soared 30.6pc to $1.04 billion, despite a low expansion of 4.6pc in shipments.

“Better packaging; increased sales to the Middle East, China, Europe, Africa and Central Asia; growth in exports of par-boiled and brown rice; and better overseas marketing by leading food companies pushed up the average export price of rice,” says a local exporter.

For quite some time, Engro Foods has been purchasing large amounts of paddy from growers — 137,000 tonnes in 2012, and 190,000 tonnes in 2013. After processing it, the company is making big local sales of rice, and is also exporting it. In 2013, its exports totaled 23,500 tonnes, and local sales stood at around 35,000 tonnes.

The launch of the ‘Rymah’ brand of rice in the UAE last year helped the company boost its exports there, officials say. Rymah is available in 2kg, 5kg, 10kg and 20kg packs.

Meanwhile, exports of fruits and vegetables fetched $338 million and $139 million in 8MFY14 respectively, showing year-on-year increases of 23 and 11pc, despite the decline in export volumes of 3.9 and 3.3pc. This means that higher per-unit price was in play in this case as well.

Former chairman of the Pakistan Fruits and Vegetable Exporters Association Abdul Waheed says $180 million worth of kinnow exports also made a difference.

The Al-Shaheer Corporation, a leading meat exporter, and its subsidiary, Meat One, have given a great boost to exports of beef and mutton, particularly to Gulf countries. The trend continues.

On the poultry side, K&Ns has lately made big strides both in meeting local market requirements and in successfully branching out in the US by making an initial investment of $5 million.

Currently, poultry meat export is not shown separately in the monthly food trade data of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. But industry sources say poultry meat is mainly exported to Afghanistan, Central Asia and GCC.

For some time, healthy developments have also been seen on the food import front. Comparing July-February FY14 data with year-ago statistics shows that import volumes of tea remained static at 87,000 tonnes.

Imports of soybean oil slipped 2.4pc to about 35,600 tonnes, and since this happened at a time when prices were low, the import bill declined by a much bigger 20pc to about $37.4 million.

Meanwhile, import volumes of palm oil, at around 1.5m tonnes, also remained more or less unchanged from the year-ago level. And as global palm oil prices were down, import payments shrank by 12.5pc to $1.228 billion. Similarly, imports of pulses, at $186 million, were 22pc lower from the last year, thanks chiefly to higher local output.

All the above-listed factors helped in trimming the overall food import bill by 10pc for 8MFY14.

Edible oil imports have remained static because of increased availability of oilseeds. But the amount of imported tea did not go up, because of smuggling of the beverage into the country under the garb of Afghanistan transit trade, businessmen say.

Food companies have lately been performing well for a variety of reasons, the most notable rising awareness of quality conscious consumers. Stock prices of food companies listed on the KSE rose more than 60pc in 2013.

“If we need to ensure that the growth of food companies translates into higher exports and contributes to food trade surplus, we will have to focus more on exports of value-added food products,” says a senior executive of Shan Food Industries, which exports ready-to-use packaged spices.

“On the other hand, we will also have to work more on import-substitution projects like cultivation of tea in KP, or growing of olive trees in the Potohar region and Balochistan.”

Source:- dawn.com

Seafood Export Crosses 1 Million Tonne

Seafood export from India crossed 1 million tonne for the first time and the earnings crossed $4.5 billion during 2013-14, according to provisional estimates of the Marine Products Export Development Authority [MPEDA].

An increase of $1billion was recorded in just 12 months as exports were $3.5 billion during 2011-12 and 2012-13, a 30% rise.

In Rupee terms, the estimates indicate earnings of Rs 20,000 crore. In 2012-13 India exported 928,215 tonne of seafood, valued at 18,856.26 crore and in 2011-12 these were 862,021 tonne and Rs 16,597.23 crore respectively.

MPEDA now targets earnings of $10 billion by 2020.

This promising performance was due to two major factors - serious fall in the production and export of shrimp from South East Asian countries and the lowering of countervailing duty [CVD] on Indian shrimp in USA.

Production in South East Asian countries had been affected badly due to the spread of a disease called Early Mortality Syndrome [EMS]. Supply from Thailand, world's second largest shrimp producer, dropped around 50% from their normal production size of 500,000 tonne per year. Likewise, other leading producers like Vietnam and Malaysia have been hit badly.

India cashed in on this global situation and enhanced its exports to the South East Asian countries. Processing plants in East Asian countries had to depend on imports from India to meet their commitments with European and US importers.

Countries like Vietnam, China and Thailand imported more shipments from India last year, mainly for re-export.

"Rise in local demand in Korea also caused warming up of global prices," said Anwar Hashim, leading exporter and former president of Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI).

Spread of EMS also caused shrimp prices to increase across the world and this in turn helped the steep rise in earnings, he added.

However, USA was the largest market for Indian shrimps in dollar terms as the country imported 51.24% of the total Indian shrimp exports. This was followed by 16.10% to South East Asian countries, 15.82% to EU and 4.94% to Japan.

Increase in the production of Vannamei shrimp, rise in the productivity of Black tiger variety of shrimp and increase in export of chilled items also helped to achieve higher exports, MPEDA said.

Washington had reduced CVD to 'nil duty' [0%] in last September. US had imposed CVD at a rate of 5.85% against India and this affected the export very badly during the last couple of years.

The contribution of cultured shrimp to the total shrimp export is 77.68%. Export of cultured shrimp showed a growth of 32.55% in quantity. Vannamei shrimp also showed tremendous growth to 134,372 tonne from 69,565 tonne, amounting to $1,473.91 million from $540.76 Million compared to 2012-13, MPEDA data said.

Source:- business-standard.com

India's 2013/14 Oilmeal Exports Down 9.8 Pct On Year-Trade Body

India's 2013/14 oilmeal exports dropped nearly 10 percent to 4.33 million tonnes, down for a second straight year as shrinking demand for soymeal and poor domestic supplies curbed sales, a leading trade body said on Monday.

Soymeal exports by Asia's No.1 supplier of the animal feed fell about 18 percent to 2.8 million tonnes, with purchases by Southeast Asian nations dropping 27.5 percent to 2.27 million tonnes over the year ended March 31, data from the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) showed.

In March, India's soymeal exports fell 26 percent from a year ago to 223,204 tonnes, the data showed.

But overseas soymeal sales were up 21.6 percent on month, the first gain since November, as exports to Iran improved.

Source:- in.reuters.com

No. block assessment if search warrant was issued in joint names to search premises belonging to one

IT: Where authorised officer conducted a search under section 132 at residential premises of assessee and thereupon Assessing Officer framed assessment under section 153A upon assessee, since warrant of authorisation had been issued in joint names of three persons to search a place which belonged to assessee and it was not issued in independent name of assessee, provisions of section 153A were not applicable

Payment of salary by Mitsubishi Head Office to employees seconded to India through LO didn't violate

CL : Where foreign Head Office seconded its employees to Indian Liaison Office and salary was paid by Head Office, Indian Liaison Office could not be said to have violated section 8 of FERA

ITAT approves of stamp duty value of land as report of DVO showed higher market value than stamp dut

IT: Where on basis of report of DVO, fair market value was higher than value adopted by stamp valuation authority, Commissioner (Appeals), rightly upheld action of Assessing Officer in adopting value so adopted by stamp valuation authority as full value of consideration received or accruing as result of transfer for purposes of computing capital gain under section 48

HC upheld demand for interest as it wasn't for provisional period but for post finalization of asses

Excise & Customs : For period prior to amendment of section 18 of Customs Act on 13-7-2006 : (a) no interest can be demanded for period when assessments were provisional; but (b) for period post finalization of assessment, demand of interest under section 28AA is valid

Central Excise Department Mass Promotion Under Ec Scanner

The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), in an order dated March 31 promoted 110 officers to the grade of assistant commissioners. The order, signed by deputy secretary to the Government of India, Amarjit Singh, reached all of its offices across the country within a couple of days.

A whistleblower from within the department in Karnataka has leaked the said circular along with the list of officers who have been promoted, arguing that the order was passed more than three weeks after the Election Commission (EC) brought into effect the model code of conduct.

He also questions the urgency to promote officers on the last day of the financial year, as formation of a new government is on the cards.

The order, a copy of which is with TOI reads: "The President is pleased to promote the officers mentioned in Annexure-I to the grade of assistant commissioner of CBEC in Pay Band 3 with Grade Pay of Rs 5,400 on purely ad-hoc basis with immediate effect and until further orders."

NR Madhav Prasad Reddy, an activist from Anekal near Bangalore, late on Saturday has filed a complaint with the EC, demanding a probe and further action, if the order violates the code.

The whistleblower's note along with the leaked document reads: (sic) "The order of promotion of 110 Asst. Commissioners of Central Excise all same place (till transfers are decided as per their own policy) signed on 31-03-2014 last day of year end, when election process is underway (not known when proper clearances from the Election Commission has been obtained, even has been obtained what was the urgency in clearing the list when new govt. could have formed and taken a justified decision over the matter)."

While the whistleblower has requested anonymity, Reddy told TOI that there could be "connivance among officers and their higher-ups. As of today I am not aware of such a thing, so I have filed a complaint requesting the EC to see if it violates the code of conduct. But once the elections are over, I will take the matter up with departments concerned, or go ahead legally."Sources in the EC, while confirming that the complaint has been filed, said, the commission will refer the matter to Delhi.

Source:- timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Rupee Trading Weak At 60.15 On Capital Outflows

Paring the morning session gains, the rupee was trading weak at 60.15 against the US currency in the afternoon trade due to weak global market and capital outflows from the domestic equity market.

The domestic unit opened stronger at 59.91 against Friday’s close of 60.10 per dollar due to a higher opening in the equity market and dollar selling by banks and exporters.

The domestic unit strengthened to 59.79 during the morning trade on strong inflows combined with dollar selling and a weak euro. However, weak global market amid capital outflows from the domestic equity market weakened the Indian currency to 60.20 against the greenback.

Japanese Nikkei fell to a one-week low, while world stocks slipped from last week’s six-year high led by a decline in technology shares, reports said.

In addition, the euro was under pressure from expectations that the European Central Bank may undertake an asset purchases programme this year to support the economy, thereby easing policy and pushing down its bond yields.

Call rates, bonds

The overnight call money rate, the interest rate at which banks borrow money from each other to overcome short-term liquidity mismatches, was trading higher at 8.15 per cent from Friday’s close of 7.10 per cent.

The yield on 10-year benchmark 8.83 per cent government bond, maturing in 2023, softened a tad to 9.05 per cent from its previous close of 9.06 per cent. Prices of the security were trading slightly higher at Rs 98.54 from Rs 98.49. Bond prices and yields move in the opposite direction.

Source:- thehindubusinessline.com

Reimbursement of service tax not to be included in gross receipts to compute sec. 44BB presumptive

IT/ILT : Service tax being a statutory liability could not form part of gross receipts for purpose of deemed profit under section 44BB

Sums received in excess of capital account of retiring partner were capital receipts and not busines

IT: Additional amounts paid to retiring partners in excess of the capital account are not in nature of any profit or income; hence not taxable

ITAT approves of proportionate sec. 14A disallowance as assessee's major funds were invested in shar

IT: Where assessee claimed that no expenditure was incurred towards exempt income but it was found that major part of available funds was invested in shares of various companies, proportionate disallowance was called for

HC recalled its order as it was passed without hearing applicant resulting into injustice to him

CL: Where patent error is found in order of Court resulting into injustice to a party by not hearing such party, it is always open to Court to exercise its inherent powers to do complete justice to such party by recalling its own order

CESTAT waives penalty on proprietor concern for reasons of family problem or ignorance of law

Service Tax : Where assessee was a proprietor concern, it is quite possible that proprietor might have missed notification or introduction of new service coupled by family problems; therefore, penalties under sections 76 and 78 was to be waived

Assessee couldn't escape capital gains tax by camouflaging 'deed of dissolution' as 'deed of retirem

IT: Where 'Deed of Dissolution' was disguised as 'Deed of Retirement', capital gains taxability under section 45(4) was attracted