Monday, 13 July 2015
Assembly of imported and domestic items to make CNG kits doesn't amount to manufacture
AO gets flak from ITAT for making addition on basis of cancelled agreement which didn't relate to as
When place of removal of goods isn't factory then no remission of duty on goods lost during transit
Winding up of defaulting co. was maintainable even in absence of exact quantification of overdue sum
Cash deposits in saving bank account held a unexplained as assessee failed to prove source of deposi
SC dismisses Vijay Mallya's appeal against prosecution under FERA with exemplary costs
CL : Evasion of summons under FERA is an independent offence under section 56 of FERA,1973 - indepen
ITAT creates distinction between ‘quasi-capital’ and ‘loan’ for ALP computation
Rent receipt from spouse is taxable as income from house property and not as income from other sourc
'Eous Must Demand Consistency In Customs, Excise Rules'
Multi Commodity Exchange's Announces Futures Contract 'Gold Global'
Further expanding its bullion product suite, Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. (MCX) on Monday announced the launch of its futures contract, Gold Global, subsequent to receiving permission from the Forward Markets Commission (FMC). This contract will be available for trade on MCX from tomorrow.
Gold Global is an international price based contract, exclusive of import premium, customs duty, sales tax/VAT, and domestic market premium among others. The contract has been designed keeping in mind the requirements of refiners, exporters, jewellers, including larger bullion physical market participants, involved in import of gold bars and re-export of jewellery. These stakeholders having significant exposure to international gold prices, need to effectively hedge against any adverse movement in prices.
The existing Gold futures contracts traded on MCX have been providing an efficient hedging mechanism to the market participants exposed to changes in Gold landed prices, which mirrors the Indian spot market perfectly. However, a category of physical participants including Indian refiners, exporters, and jewellers are looking for contracts with less international basis risk and protection against adverse international price movements and this contract will cater to their needs perfectly. The Gold Global contract will be settled based on international prices converted to Indian Rupee based on RBI Reference Rate on the date of expiry, and will have 'both option' delivery logic thus offering an inbuilt rupee hedge to the participants. The participants will also get a margin benefit of up to 75 per cent if they trade in spreads between Gold Global and other gold contracts at MCX.
Speaking on the occasion, P K Singhal, Joint Managing Director, MCX said, "While the existing gold contracts on the Exchange are already an established benchmark of price and quality in the Indian bullion markets, we seized the opportunity to further entrench our position in this market by launching the Gold Global contract. With its launch, MCX's bullion basket offerings will include one more variant i.e. Gold Global (200 grams) apart from the existing Gold (1 Kg), Gold Mini (100 grams), Gold Guinea (8 grams), and Gold Petal (1 gram), thus enabling us to meet the needs of most stakeholders of the bullion value chain."
"The Gold Global contract would facilitate hedging by all stakeholders in India's gold value chain, and therefore is a step towards making India's gold market more competitive. Separately, it will also reduce dabba trading, which is rampant especially in the Indian bullion futures market," he added.
Source:- economictimes.indiatimes.com
India Passing Through A Challenging Phase Especially In Exports: Dgft
India is passing through a "challenging phase", particularly in exports, but underscored government's commitment on ensuring ease of doing business, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Pravir Kumar said in Chennai on Sunday.
"Right now, we are passing through a challenging phase, particularly in exports. In the past six months, there have been global issues, global turmoil also... so the exports are not doing as well as we would like to," he said.
Addressing an Open House organised by Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Chennai, Kumar said even "winning sectors" have been facing problems in the past few months, reports media.
However, the government is prepared to face the situation as "we have the inner strength and depth to absorb," any such short-term problems.
Certain "external" factors such as the "problem in Greece or problem in China" are beyond our control, but "we have to live with it," and come up with innovative ways to circumvent the problems arising out of these, he added.
However, at the internal level, the government's endeavour should be to make things easy, and "the best we can do is make trading easy," he said.
"You must be aware that the government has come up with the new foreign trade policy and you realise that the main thrust of the new foreign trade policy is on ease of doing business, making trading easy," he added.
Reducing the number of documents required for export-import is "just one of the steps" by the government in its endeavour to make ease of doing business, he said.
Meanwhile, the DGFT also recalled his department launching online payment of fee yesterday, which again is a part of efforts to ensure ease of doing business.
Further, the Revenue Department is working on a single window clearance system for customs procedures and once this takes shape in about six months it would be a major initiative, he added.
Kumar also urged exporters to do trade with countries which had signed Free Trade Agreements with India.
Source:- smetimes.in
Steel Imports Jumps 50% In First Three Months; Consumption Up 7.1%
Growth in consumption, JPC said: "Such growth stemmed both from rising production for sale (up by 2.8%) and most importantly, imports (up by 53.1%) during this period and in general, is in sync with the overall growth trends noticed in major macroeconomic parameters -- the IIP and the Core Sector Index."
India's steel imports surged over 53% in the April-June quarter of the current fiscal indicating that domestic producers continue to face pressure from cheap inbound shipments from countries such as China, Japan and Korea.
Steel consumption however grew by 7.1% to 20.10 million tonnes (MT) in the first quarter of 2015-16 helped by cheaper imports and increased production of saleable steel, shows the latest data by Joint Plant Committee (JPC), under the Steel Ministry.
Total finished steel imports grew 53.1 per cent to 2.545 MT in April-June as against the year-ago period. But imports in June 2015 were down 4.7 per cent at 0.873 MT from May. Compared to June last year, imports rose by 49.5 per cent. In the fiscal 2014-15, imports grew 71 per cent to 9.32 MT compared to 2013-14, making India a net importer of the metal.
To check rising imports, the government last month raised basic customs duty (BCD) on some long and flat steel products by 2.5%. Import duty on flat steel products was increased to 10% from 7.5%, while for long steel products it was raised to 7.5% from 5%.
During June itself, India slapped anti-dumping duty of up to $316 per tonne on imports of certain steel products from three countries, including China, to protect domestic producers from below-cost inbound shipments.
On growth in consumption, JPC said: "Such growth stemmed both from rising production for sale (up by 2.8%) and most importantly, imports (up by 53.1%) during this period and in general, is in sync with the overall growth trends noticed in major macroeconomic parameters -- the IIP and the Core Sector Index."
Domestic steel consumption fell by 3.3% in June this year to 7.175 MT against last month, but was up 6.6% compared to June 2014, it added. The export of total finished steel fell by 31.7% in April-June 2015-16 to 0.991 MT against the year-ago period.
Exports in June increased by 14.1% to 0.32 MT compared to May 2015, but decreased by 25% against June 2014. Production for sale of total finished steel registered a growth of 2.8% at 23.71 MT during April-June compared to the same period of last fiscal.
In the first quarter of 2015-16, crude steel production grew by only 0.9% to 22.511 MT against the same quarter of 2014-15. ISP Producers (SAIL, RINL, TSL, Essar, JSWL and JSPL) together produced 11.765 MT, while the rest -- 10.746 MT -- came from Other Producers.
Crude steel production by ISP Producers grew by 4.3% compared to the same period of last year, but that by the Other Producers saw a decline of 2.7% during the same period.
Source:dnaindia.com
Cotton Counter Looks Up On Increase In Export Demand
There has been a sudden spurt in export demand for cotton from some of the overseas markets, which has helped firm up cotton prices in recent times. While prices of the benchmark Shankar 6 variety has jumped three per cent to Rs 9,617 a quintal from Rs 9,336 nearly two-three weeks ago, cotton futures for near-month delivery saw 1.3 per cent gain at Rs 9,665 a quintal on the Multi-Commodity Exchange. The market hopes for even higher demand in the days ahead.
However, Indian Cotton Federation (ICF) feels export demand still remains sluggish. With China, the top destination for Indian cotton, remaining inactive in importing the commodity, exports are unlikely to see significant growth this year. In the 2014-15 season that started in October 2014, the cotton supply situation is likely to remain the same as in the 2013-14 season, ICF feels.
Cotton is predominantly a monsoon or kharif season crop. It is planted from the end of April through September and harvested during the winter. India accounts for about one-third of the global cotton area. Two-thirds of India’s cotton is produced in states like Odisha, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, where much of the crop is rain-fed. North India, comprising Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, produces cotton under irrigated conditions and accounts for 15 per cent of total production. Andhra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu contribute 30 per cent down south.
The latest cotton report released by the US department of agriculture (USDA) suggests India’s cotton output is expected to decline for the second consecutive year to 37.5 million bales in the marketing year 2015-16 mainly due to a likely drop in yields on account of delayed sowing, weather issues and low realisations.
For the 2014-15 marketing season (August-July), USDA has forecast cotton output to be 38 million bales, while the government has projected it at 35.3 million bales (one bale equals 170 kg of cotton).
India’s cotton output is projected to be 37.5 million bales from 12 million hectares harvested, the USDA report said. The Cotton Advisory Board, on its part, said the country’s total production during 2013-14 stood at 39 million bales and ICF estimates the production for 2014-15 at around 38.7 million bales.
These numbers need to be seen in the light of the recently-released report of the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), which said the world’s cotton area is expected to decline by 6 per cent to 31.3 million hectares in 2015-16 due largely to lower prices in 2014-15. In India, the cotton area is projected to decrease by 5 per cent to 11.6 million hectares in 2015-16, the report said, adding that, falling prices for competing crops and a modest increase in the MSP may forestall a greater decline.
India exported 90 lakh bales of cotton in 2013-14. Exports are likely to end up at nearly 45 lakh bales this year with 35-37 lakh bales already exported as of June 30.
According to textile industry sources, India is losing its market share in cotton and man-made fibre (MMF) categories, as most of the products are made of coarse cotton yarn and MMF prices are at least 25 per cent higher than the rates prevailing in the competing countries. Under the “make in India” initiative, the government has lined up an ambitious plan for putting up a modern apparel/garment manufacturing centre in each of the northeast states. Analysts feel the focus on domestic manufacturing should raise local demand of cotton considerably.
Source:mydigitalfc.com
Assessee may claim refund arising due to clerical mistake without challenging the assessment order
Delhi Vidhansabha hikes upper cap of VAT on certain goods including liquor, petrol and cold drinks
Sum incurred on repairing of roads to facilitate movement of goods manufactured by assessee was allo
India: Thermal Coal Imports Soar 23% At 12 Major Ports
Import of thermal coal jumped 23 per cent to 24.08 million tonnes at 12 major ports in the first quarter of the fiscal, even as the government continues to push for boosting domestic production of the fuel.
Handling of coking coal, which is used mainly for steel-making, however remained nearly stagnant with less than 1 per cent increase in the period at 8.17 MT, according to the Indian Ports Association (IPA).
These 12 major ports had handled 19.62 MT and 8.10 MT of thermal and coking coal, respectively, in the first quarter of the previous fiscal.
Altogether, they handled 32.25 MT coal during the April-June quarter of the current fiscal as against 27.72 MT in the same quarter of the previous fiscal.
Coal is the mainstay of India’s energy programme as 70 per cent of power generation is dependent on the dry fuel, while Coal Minister Piyush Goyal has been emphasising the need to increase the production by state-run Coal India.
India is the third-largest producer of coal, after China and the US, and has 299 billion tonnes of resources and 123 billion tonnes of proven reserves, which may last for over 100 years.
India has 12 major ports — Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, V O Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) which handle approximately 61 per cent of the country’s total cargo traffic.
Thermal coal is used in power generation and with the world’s largest miner Coal India, which accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic requirement consistently failing to meet its target as well as demand of the firms, the power plants resort to imports.
Less production coupled with increased demand from power firms is further widening the demand-supply gap in the country, which is likely to widen to 185.5 MT in 2016-17.
Coal India could record barely a 31 MT increase in coal production in four years from 2010 to 2014, but in 2014-15, it recorded an increase of 32 MT. For the current fiscal, CIL’s production target has been fixed at 550 MT.
CIL missed the production target for 2014-15 by 3 per cent recording an output of 494.23 MT. The company’s output target was 507 MT for the fiscal. In 2013-14, the company had clocked production of 462.53 MT against a target of 482 MT.
In 2012-13, Coal India produced 452.5 MT of coal, falling short of the 464 MT goal. The Centre has announced plans to boost Coal India’s annual production to the level of 1 billion tonnes by 2019 to meet growing fuel demand.
Source:hellenicshippingnews.com
Punjab Govt reduces penalties for wrongly claimed refund of VAT
Delhi Vidhansabha hikes upper cap of VAT on certain goods including liquor, petrol and diesel
Rupee Opens Lower At 63.45 Against Us Dollar
The Indian rupee on Monday weakened against the dollar as the Index of Industrial production (IIP) numbers for May were below expectations.
The local unit opened at 63.45 per dollar. At 9.09am, the home currency was trading at 63.46, down 0.10% from its previous close of 63.40. Industrial production grew by 2.7% in May 2015 against expectations of 4.4%, led by a sharp fall in capital goods and consumer goods data.
The Sensex index gained 0.28% or 77.92 points to 27,739.32 points in pre-opening trade. Among the Asian currencies, Hong Kong dollar lost 0.004%, Indonesian rupiah gained 0.113%, Japanese yen gained 0.180%, Malaysian ringgit lost 0.184%, Philippine peso lost 0.182%, Singapore dollar lost 0.059%, South Korean won lost 0.244%, Taiwan dollar gained 0.097% and Thai baht lost 0.141%.
The yield on India’s 10-year benchmark bond was trading at 7.89% compared with its Friday’s close of 7.80%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
Since the beginning of this year, the rupee has lost 0.68%, while foreign institutional investors have bought $13.26 billion from local equity and bond markets.
The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 96.014, down 0.001% from the previous close of 96.025.
Source:livemint.com