Some relief is offered via input credit. But a seamless tax credit chain is inevitable in a regime of taxes coming under different jurisdictions On the midnight of June 30, 2017, the government flagged off the most revolutionary economic reform, viz. the Goods and Services Tax (GST), ever undertaken post-independence. Even as expectations run high, the GST Council is having a tough time dealing with a plethora of exemptions particularly in the export sector — a baggage that got deeply entrenched under the existing system of taxation. Under the extant system, the Indian industry had to pay multiple taxes such as Excise Duty, Countervailing Duty (CVD), Special Additional Duty (SAD), Central Sales Tax (CST), Value Added Tax (VAT), and a...
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Articles
Too early to look for jobs
SEARCH FOR THE RIGHT SOLUTION
Loan waivers and written-offs given to corporates or farmers are totally unacceptable. They impact viability of banks and erode their capital base In the last session of the Parliament, members of the Opposition alleged that, while the Government had no qualms in waiving loans worth hundreds of thousand crore rupees given to industrialists and corporates, it showed little inclination to extend the same relief to farmers who are unable to pay back loans for no fault of theirs. The treasury benches responded by saying loans given to corporates are not waived; instead, they are written-off. To a layman, write-off and waiver would appear to convey the same meaning — in both, lender decides not to recover unpaid loans from borrower....
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Self-sufficiency in fertilisers or building castles in air?
Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Ananth Kumar has announced the government’s decision to revive five closed plants of Fertiliser Corporation of India (FCIL) and Hindustan Fertiliser Corporation Limited (HFCL). They are: Talcher (Odisha), Ramagundum (Telangana), Sindri (Jharkhand), Barauni (Bihar) and Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh). To be commissioned by 2020-21, their revival is expected to add 7.5 million tonnes (mt) of urea capacity. The minister has also exuded confidence that the decision for mandatory neem coating of urea (2015) will result in 10% improvement in the efficiency of fertiliser use. Taking urea consumption of about 33 mt annually, this will save about 3.3 mt. He also referred to steps for increasing utilisation of the existing capacity. This has led to increase...
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Why irresponsible registration of pesticide companies must be reined in
The Parliamentary standing committee on agriculture in its 2015-16 report—Impact of chemical fertilisers and pesticides on agriculture and allied sectors in the country—has expressed serious concern over unscientific, excessive use of pesticides. The Parliamentary standing committee on agriculture in its 2015-16 report—Impact of chemical fertilisers and pesticides on agriculture and allied sectors in the country—has expressed serious concern over unscientific, excessive use of pesticides. It laments that associated problems have not been properly addressed by central and state governments. Even as the committee exhorts the Centre for ‘a comprehensive action plan for ensuring environment sustainable manufacturing, import, sale and use of pesticides’, review of the Insecticides Act (IA),1968 and setting up of Pesticides Development and Regulation Authority (PDRA), it has...
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Minority shareholders ‘short-changed’ at Bombay House
INDIA’S PULSE DILEMMA
While the Government has done its bit to boost the output of pulses, it has done little to check the nexus between politicians and grain traders For several decades, production of pulses in India has fallen substantially short in terms of consumption. This persistent deficit has led to intermittent bouts of spike in prices as imports (needed to plug it) have often come after lag and have failed to reach consumption points in time — courtesy: Handling, storage and transportation bottlenecks. Pulses are an important source of nutrition, especially for vegetarians. It is also a critical component for the diet of the poor. This nutrition-poor link, which is juxtaposed with hike in price, has also been exploited by opposition parties...
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New visa regime to hit growth, competitiveness of US firms
A senior official of the Trump administration has lambasted three leading Indian information technology companies — Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Cognizant Technologies — for resorting to ‘trickery’ for allegedly grabbing most of H1-B visas issued by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The H1-B visas are issued to foreigners who have ‘theoretical’ and ‘technical’ expertise in specialised areas to work in local (read American) companies for a temporary period. The US issues 85,000 such visas every year — 65,000 hired from abroad and 20,000 from those enrolled in the US universities/colleges. Due to the heavy demand, the USCIS which runs the programme, receives several times more applications than it can grant and uses an electronic lottery to...
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At WTO India gets platitudes, no permanent solution
SAVING THE RURAL JOB SCHEME FROM DEATH
Modi has pressed all the right buttons to ensure that MGNREGS becomes an instrument of promoting his Government’s inclusive development agenda In a stunning revelation, Amarjeet Sinha, Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), revealed that the Government had cancelled nearly 10 million fake ‘job cards’ under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Including the fake beneficiaries struck off from the scheme earlier, the total number of such cards cancelled thus far is more than 31 million. Under MGNREGA — a flagship welfare scheme launched by erstwhile UPA dispensation in 2005 — ‘guaranteed’ employment is provided to a member of a poor family in rural areas for a minimum of 100 days in a year and wage paid...
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