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Current Affairs

1. GST: Anti-profiteering Panel to be set up.

A five-member anti-profiteering authority will be set up to decide on levying a penalty if businesses do not pass on the benefit of price reduction to consumers under the goods and services tax regime. The authority to be headed by a retired secretary-level officer, can take suo motu action, besides acting on complaints of profiteering.

The GST Council, chaired by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley and comprising state finance ministers as members, on Sunday approved the anti-profiteering rules. As per the norms, the authority will have a sunset date of two years and will decide on a penalty to be levied. It would ask the businesses to refund the price reduction on a proportionate basis to consumers.Where the consumer cannot be identified, the amount would be credited to the consumer welfare fund, an official said.

A search-cum-selection committee will be set up for finalising the members of the anti-profiteering authority. Officials said it is likely to take about two months to finalise the members.

Besides the chairman, the four other members of the authority will be joint secretary-level officers who have been commissioners in central excise and service tax either at the Centre or states.

As per the structure, the complaints of profiteering would first come to the standing committee comprising tax officials from states and the Centre. It would forward the complaint to the Directorate of Safeguards (DGS) for investigation, which is likely to take about two-three months to complete the inquiry.

On completion of the investigation, the report would be submitted to the anti-profiteering authority which would decide on the penalty. The Section 171 of the Central GST Act provides that any reduction in the rate of tax on any supply of goods or services or the benefit of input tax credit will be passed on to the recipient by way of commensurate reduction in prices.

2.India’s Largest Municipal Bond Programme Launched.

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) became the first municipal corporation in the country to tap money through municipal bonds in 14 years. The AA+ rated PMC’s municipal bonds raised Rs 200 crore at 7.59 per cent rate at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

This is the first-ever mobilisation of debt capital by a municipal corporation on the BSE BOND platform. This will also be the first issuance since the publication of ‘Issue and Listing of Debt Securities by Municipalities Regulations, 2015’ by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

The 10-year bonds will be used by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) for a Rs 2,300-crore water project. The scheme is aimed at providing water 24×7 for all residents of Pune.

3. CBDT notifies Rule 10CB for secondary adjustments under section 92ce of it act, 1961.

Rule 10CB for operationalising the provisions of secondary adjustment has been notified by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 15th June, 2017.

It prescribes the time limit for repatriation of excess money and the rate of interest to be applied for computing the income in case of failure to repatriate the excess money within the prescribed time limit.

Separate rates of interest have been provided for international transactions denominated in Indian currency and in foreign currency. The rates of interest are applicable on an annual basis.

The time limit of 90 days for repatriation of excess money shall begin only when the primary adjustments exceeding Rupees One Crore made in respect of Assessment Year 2017-18 or later, attains finality.

Where the transfer pricing order is appealed against by the taxpayer, the time limit for repatriation shall commence only after the appeal is finalised by the appellate authority.

4. Government notifies 18 sections and 2 rules under GST Act.

The government has notified 18 sections and two rules to be effective from 22 June 2017 under the GST Act.

The notified sections are related to registration of current central excise, service tax and VAT payers with the GSTN as well as transitional provisions.

The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has notified two rules of registration and composition levy.

Every business carrying out a taxable supply of goods or services with a turnover exceeding the threshold limit of Rs.2 million will have to register for GST, as per the notified sections.

5. RBI releases Handbook of Statistics on Indian States 2016-17.

The Reserve Bank of India released the second edition of its statistical publication titled “Handbook of Statistics on Indian States 2016-17”. Through this publication, the Reserve Bank has been disseminating wide-ranging data on the regional economy of India.

This publication follows the ‘one indicator-one table’ approach and in 129 tables it covers sub-national statistics on socio-demographics, state domestic product, agriculture, industry, infrastructure, banking and fiscal indicators across Indian States over a time period ranging from 1951 to 2016-17.

While the Handbook has been updated based on latest available data, its content has been improved by covering additional tables on infrastructure.

Thus, in addition to the existing data series on State-wise availability of power, per capita availability of power, installed capacity of power, and power requirement, this edition has added data on State-wise length of national highways, railway routes, length of roads, and length of state highways, based on information sourced from the respective authorities namely, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, and Ministry of Railways; Government of India.

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