IT : Addition made after rejecting books maintained by assessee, be deleted when all quantitative details were available in books of account and accounts were regularly maintained
Sunday 20 April 2014
Tribunal to expedite hearing when verdict was reserved and case was re-heared due to change in bench
Service Tax : Where hearing was concluded and judgment was reserved but not pronounced and matter was listed for re-hearing due to change in bench, High Court expressed its unhappiness and directed Tribunal to expedite hearing
Case remanded to examine whether land would be covered under new definition of urban land introduced
WT : Where Assessing Officer included value of certain land in net wealth of assessee and after his death, legal heirs of assessee requested for admission of evidence to prove that subject land was agricultural land which had been excluded from definition of urban land as defined under amended provisions of section 2(ea), reasonable opportunity of being heard should be provided to legal heirs
Sail To Ink Pact With Iran For Supplying Railway Tracks
With the Western nations easing sanctions on Iran, the country’s biggest steel maker SAIL is all set to sign a definitive agreement to supply steel worth nearly Rs 15,000 crore to help Tehran set up a railway network project spanning over 15,000 km to connect its major ports and key production centres.
Khaleel Rahim, chairman of state-owned trading firm State Trading Corporation (STC) is slated to visit Tehran this week to finalise some of the formalities that could pave the way for steel exports from India.
Iran had sought Indian investment in massively expanding its railway network and needs about 3 million tonnes of steel rails to connect all major cities, industrial centres and also ports for faster evacuation of goods.
Last year, Washington had eased sanctions on Iran, which has enabled Indian companies to explore investment options. The commerce ministry officials had in December last year, met the top brass of SAIL, BHEL and railway infrastructure builder IRCON to consider investing in the west Asian nation.
A top commerce ministry official told The Indian Express that the STC has been entrustedwith inking definitive agreements with its Iranian counterpart to pave the way for Indian steel exports there.
“Iran is seeking around 3 MT of steel and STC chairman Khaleel Rahim would visit Tehran this week to finalise the formalities,” the official said. Other companies like Jindal, Vizag Steel and Essar are also in the race, a source said.
When contacted, SAIL chairman C S Verma said after several rounds of discussions with the commerce ministry and STC, SAIL has expressed its readiness in supplying 3 MT rail steel. “We are supplying rails to Indian Railways since many years. Our director commercial Vinod Kumar would accompany Khaleel Rahim to help him finalise the modalities,” Verma said.
SAIL’s Bhilai steel plant is the sole supplier of the country’s longest rail tracks of 260 metres. With an annual production capacity of 3.15 MT of saleable steel, the plant also specialises in other products such as wire rods and merchant products.
The commerce ministry official said Indian exporters are banking on the UCO Bank to help implement the rupee payment mechanism. The easing of the payment mechanism has helped propel Indian exports to Iran to over $ 550 million, which, is around eight times the exports few years ago.
UCO Bank, in 2012, began handling payments for India-Iran trade, under which domestic oil refiners buy oil from Iran but make payments into an ‘Iran Account’ with UCO Bank’s Mumbai branch. When Iranians import goods from India, the bank pays the Indian exporters out of this account.
India-Iran trade is expected to cross the $20-billion mark in FY14, up from $15 billion in FY13. India’s exports to Iran include rice, metals, machinery and instruments, primary and semi finished iron and steel, drugs and pharmaceuticals, processed minerals, manmade yarn and fabrics, tea and rubber manufactured items. Imports from Iran include crude oil, urea, petroleum products, saffron and dry fruits.
Source:- indianexpress.com
Over 150 Indian Exporters To Join Hong Kong Trade Fair: Epch
With Hong Kong emerging as an important destination for aggressive marketing through medium of trade fairs, the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH) is organizing the participation of more than 150 Indian handicrafts exporters to showcase their products in the four-day-long Hong Kong Houseware, International Home Textiles & Furnishing to be held from 20-23 April and Gifts & Premium Fair to be held from 27-30 April in Hong Kong.
Excluding Hong Kong and mainland China, the top other visiting countries and regions are: India, United States, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, Korea, Thailand, Germany, Italy, Philippines, Spain, Brunei, Turkey, Macau, Malaysia, Israel, Singapore etc.
More than 150 Indian companies will be showcasing a wide range of products, spread over an area of 1500 sq. metres, which include Gifts, Premium & Corporate Gifts, Fashion Jewellery & Accessories, Picture and Photo Frames & Christmas Decoration, Kids Room Accessories, Candle Holders, Bowl, Vases, Home Furnishing Items, Cushions, Curtains, Apron, Towel, Mats, Handicrafts of Art Metalware, Handicrafts of Woodware, Textile-based Products, Jute, Cotton, Wine, Shopping and Canvas Bags, Baby & Bedroom Textile, Bedroom & Kitchen Textile, Carpet & floor coverings, Upholstery & furnishing Products, Window Accessories in textiles categories and Bar Accessories, Home Living, Furniture, Home Tech, Green Living Health & Wellness, Home Accents, Kitchenware & Gadgets, Outdoor living Paintings, Objects d’Art, Tableware in Houseware categories.
"After detailed analysis and survey of the trade shows of Hong Kong, the Council has been participating on regular and annual basis in these trade fairs covering the entire range of handicrafts sector of India," said Rakesh Kumar, Executive Director of EPCH.
"Handicrafts occupies an important place in the Indian economy and society. This product group is a large foreign exchange earner, employment generator for economically and socially backward classes and promoter of Indian ethnic, cultural heritage worldwide," he added.
EPCH -- an apex body for promotion and export of handicrafts products from India to the world market -- has since evolved an integrated and comprehensive policy which revolves around development of new product lines, new designs, improvement in technology and aggressive marketing as well as exploration of new markets.
Source:- smetimes.in
Monsoon Forecasts Likely To Determine Cotton Prices
The cash crop witnesses 25-30% price fall in past few months as in the case of other kharif crops, cotton too is awaiting monsoon forecasts to get a direction for the prices in the medium to long term.
Cotton prices have been largely bearish for the last one year; they have fallen 25-30 per cent in the past few months. Prices have been sliding since June last year. In May, kapas prices in the futures market have been around Rs 1,100 per 20 kg levels. Good monsoons prevailed upon most of the kharif crops, including cotton, since June.
In August, prices were around Rs 950 levels. It briefly went up to Rs 1,070 due to short covering and by November fell to Rs 905 levels.
“In October-November, prices remain subdued due to fresh arrivals. However, they go up during December due to higher export demand. In December prices, went up shortly to Rs 1,140 and fell to Rs 750 levels as export demand tapered down by February-March. The cotton crop too was bigger this time compared to the previous year,” said Ajitesh Mullick, AVP-retail research of Religare Commodities.
Cotton production in 2013-14 has been 37.5 million bales of 170 kg against 36.5 million bales in the previous year. The country usually consumes around 25-26 million bales and exports the rest.
“China is the biggest buyer of Indian cotton. The demand from China has been less in the past few weeks. There were reports that China has high levels of stocks and was planning to reduce its stock levels,” said Mullick. This brought down the prices of cotton in the market.
“However, on the price front, much will depend upon the monsoon prediction by Indian Meteorological Department which will be out in around 10 days. There are assumptions that due to the El Nino factor, India will either receive insufficient rains or that the monsoons will get delayed. This will affect sowing of all the kharif crops and prices across agri-commodities might go up. The subsequent predictions on monsoons in May and June also will affect the movement of prices in the medium term,’ said Mullick.
In case of IMD predicting regular monsoons, bearishness will continue in the cotton counter. But as the commodity has fallen more than 25 per cent in the past few months, further fall is not anticipated. On the other hand, a defective monsoon can push the prices at least by 15-20 per cent up in the medium to long term.
Source:- mydigitalfc.com
Us Regulator Stifles Indian Drug Exports
India's drug export growth in 2013-14 may have dipped sharply from the projected 16-17 per cent to six-seven per cent, officials said.
Pharmaceuticals - India's third fastest growing export industry - sold overseas grew 10.55 per cent to $14.65 billion (Rs 87,900 crore) during 2012-13. The country exported $12.4 billion of drugs during the first 10 months of 2013-14, according to the Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India.
The deceleration in 2013-14 is principally because of bans imposed by the US, the world's largest drug market, on imports from Indian companies. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has in the past year found manufacturing violations among several plants of generic drug suppliers like Ranbaxy, Wockhardt, Sun Pharma, RPG Life Sciences and Agila Specialities. Some factories are also barred from supplying to other markets like the EU.
"We have not yet arrived at the actual export calculations for 2013-14, but growth is likely to be much lower than expected. While currency fluctuation has had its adverse effect, the major contributor is regulatory actions faced by major companies," PV Appaji, director-general, Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil) told Business Standard.
India has over 200 FDA-approved drug manufacturing facilities and is the largest foreign supplier of generic medicines to the US. During 2012-13, drug exports from India to the US rose 32 per cent to $4.23 billion. Most major Indian drug companies earn 60-80 per cent of their consolidated revenues from exports. Sales in the US make up the largest share at xx per cent. The EU and Africa are also important markets with 18 and 17 per cent share in exports, respectively.
Industry analysts question whether the Indian drug industry can sustain its recent export performance with the regulatory hurdles they confront now.
"The increasing regulatory actions should certainly slow growth by a couple of percentage points," said Kumar Hinduja, senior director for strategy planning and business development at IMS Health, a leading market research agency for the healthcare sector.
Source:- business-standard.com
Scanner On Slipping Indirect Tax Collection
After the income tax (I-T) department, the excise and service tax department plans to use information from third-party sources to match with its own data and assess reasons for unsatisfactory tax collections from some sectors.
"If other indicators for some sectors are doing well, we can compare those with tax data and see why the revenue from that particular sector is not keeping pace," said a finance ministry official.
The Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC) will develop the process over the next few months. This will help enforce tax compliance and widen the base.
Another official said the information technology (IT) capability was largely available. Strengthening the processes would help in intelligence and audit work. For instance, if automobile sales during a particular period have shown robust increase but excise collections from the sector had not, one would have to analyse where the problem was and how to address it.
Besides industry data, CBEC is using data from the I-T department based on the returns and other documents filed with it to widen the tax base, particularly in service tax. In the case of excise, it has set up a study group to check leakages in Cenvat credit. Many taxpayers set off their final tax liability against the tax paid on inputs. Thus, the duty payment in cash comes down.
"Tax collections should reflect the health of a particular sector but there can be exceptions where production has increased but a lot of credit is lying around because of huge capital investment. Something similar had happened in the telecom sector. If they (CBEC) do it (matching data) at a macro level, it is good but if they go micro, it won't help anyone," said Bipin Sapra, tax partner, EY.
From provisional figures, indirect tax receipts, including customs, excise and service tax, fell short of the 2013-14 revised estimate of Rs 5,19,520 crore by about Rs 17,000 crore. The estimate in the Budget at the start of the financial year was Rs 5,65,002 crore. The interim Budget target for this financial year is Rs 6,17,377 crore. The shortfall was due to a slowing in the economic activity.
"We have also moved a proposal for a committee that would give us the road map for improved IT infrastructure to encourage voluntary compliance, business intelligence and analytics," the official said.
An advanced analytics centre would be set up to maximise collections.
An Advanced Passenger Information System will be hastened to check tax evasion on customs duty. It also enhances border security by providing officers with pre-arrival and departure data on all passengers.
Earlier, the tax authorities had started a project called 'Tax 360'. Under this, the sales tax department of the Maharashtra government used the data available with various central agencies to get information on evaders by monitoring transactions such as foreign travel and high value purchases. More states had later asked the Centre to provide such data.
The I-T department uses third-party information from sources such as the Annual Information Return, Central Information Branch and the Centralised Processing Centre for Tax Deducted at Source to check for tax compliance.
Source:- business-standard.com
HC raps depart. for collecting ST during search without any assessment; orders refund of ST
Service Tax : No tax can be collected from assessee, without an appropriate assessment order being passed by authority concerned by following procedures established by law; therefore, service tax collected during search without any assessment was directed to be refunded back
HC directs restoration of Co's name as no other remedy would be available to make good losses of pet
CL : Where company's name was struck off and petitioner sued company in Trial Court and if company's name was not restored, there would be no effective remedy available for loss caused to petitioner, name of company was to be restored to register
ITAT rejects working of PLI when TPO took FOB value of goods as 'total cost' instead of cost incurre
IT/ILT: While working out PLI 'total cost' has to be taken as costs incurred by assessee and not FOB value of goods between third party enterprises sourced through assessee
Rupee Nearly Steady At 60.31 Per Dollar In Opening Trade
The Indian rupee on Monday opened marginally lower against the US dollar, tracking the trend in Asian currency markets.The local unit opened at 60.31 against its Thursday’s close of 60.29.
Most Asian currencies were trading higher with Malaysian ringgit down 0.21%, Japanese yen down 0.17%, Thai baht down 0.11%, Taiwan dollar down 0.08%.
Since the beginning of this year, the rupee has gained 2.45%, while foreign institutional investors have bought $4.74 billion during the period from local equity markets.
The yield on India’s 10-year benchmark bond was trading at 8.864%, compared with its Thursday’s close of 8.853%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 79.892, up 0.06% from the previous close of 79.847.
At 9.15am, the home currency was trading at 60.33, down 0.06% from previous close, while India’s benchmark index, Sensex was trading at 22,644.92 points on BSE, up 0.07%.Markets were shut On Friday on account of Good Friday.
Source:- livemint.com
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