 |
|
Corporate tax can be reduced if
Software liable for levy of sales tax, rules apex court
Maintain status quo, Delhi HC directs BSNL
BenQ to launch LCD TV in India
Grasim makers gear up for global competition
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Nath seeks liberal services from trading partners
MFIs to revamp rural credit
Air Sahara launches Hub Hyderabad
|
|
Corporate tax can be reduced if base expands
New Delhi, November 5 “There is a room for reduction in rates of taxes, but not without a plan for how the tax base can be expanded,” Advisor to Finance Minister Parthasarthi Shome said
at a meeting organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) here today. On the issue of Vat, which is scheduled to come into force from April 1,2005, Dr Shome said the process of introducing Vat has been going on slowly over the last 15 years in order to cushion the impact. “The changes have also been made with the idea of them remaining in place for a long time and require revisiting,” he said. He also said there is a problem of insufficient alignment of incentives with taxes, which has largely effected the efficiency allocation of resources in the country. “The correct type of incentives have had a positive impact on the supply side, which has further expanded the tax base. I challenge you to come up with a list of incentives, which are favourable to the macro-economy rather than from the point of view of micro-economic intentions,” he said. Meanwhile, at a separate function today Finance Minister P Chidambaram expressed the hope that the country will witness an 8 per cent. growth rate per annum, becoming a super economic power in the next few years. “With good governance and good politics, I am sure we will achieve an 8 per cent growth very soon and become a super economic power,” Mr Chidambaram said during his address to a session on Vision India — Next Economic Superpower.
|
|
Govt may use forex for infrastructure funding
New Delhi, November 5 “We are considering the proposal to utilise part of the forex reserves for funding infrastructure projects,” Dr Parthsarathi Shome, Adviser to the Finance Minister, told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar here. Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia had mooted the proposal to use about $ 15 billion from around $ 120 billion of forex reserves for funding infrastructure projects in the country over the next three years. On reducing the limit for corporate tax on companies, Dr Shome said there was scope for reduction of corporate tax, but for that the tax base had to be widened. He further urged the public and private sector to work together to create a level playing field for tax in the country.
— UNI
|
|
|
Software liable for levy of sales tax, rules apex court
New Delhi, November 5 The ruling, expected to give a little boost to the dwindling revenues of states, was given by a five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Justice N Santosh Hegde, Justice S N Variava, Justice B P Singh, Justice H K Sema and Justice S B Sinha on a petition filed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). TCS had challenged an Andhra Pradesh High Court order allowing levy of sales tax on the computer software after classifying it as “goods” under the provisions of the Act. Upholding the high court order, the apex court said, “when a person goes to buy a CD containing the software, he is not paying for the mere CD but for the software contained in the CD”. Appearing for TCS, senior advocate Soli J Sorabjee and advocate Sanjib Sen, contended that software was nothing but knowledge and hence could not be categorised as goods.
|
|
Maintain status quo, Delhi HC directs BSNL
New Delhi, November 5 The direction came from a Bench of Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Anil Kumar who directed Reliance Infocomm to deposit Rs 40 crore with BSNL by Monday (November 8). The Division Bench, which heard an appeal by Reliance Infocomm against yesterday’s order by a single judge Bench, asked BSNL to file its reply to the private telecom operator’s appeal and posted the matter for further hearing on November 30. In an interim order, the Court also directed Reliance to file an affidavit confirming that it has stopped routing of international calls as local ones with wrong Caller Line Identification (CLI). When contacted, BSNL Chairman and Managing Director A K Sinha said: “We shall abide by the High Court order.” Asked about BSNL’s future course of action, he said: “We will examine the court judgement and then decide our next plan.”
— PTI
|
|
BenQ to launch LCD TV in India
Chandigarh, November 5 Talking exclusively to The Tribune today while on a brief visit to Chandigarh to assess the North Indian market she observed that this region is the strongest market in India as it contributes 40 per cent of their overall business from this country. A BA graduate in Political Science from National Taiwan University and an MA (Economics) from Duke University, Nancy says that BenQ’s mobile phones got a resounding response from the country and nearly 75 per cent of the revenue generated from India has been from the communication segment (mobile phones). “Another new cellphone model A-500 is on the cards,” she says. “If seen globally, 40 per cent of the BenQ’s revenue lies in the display group (LCD monitors etc) and 20 per cent in communication segment,” she says and adds that their company raked in $ 3.5 billion revenue in 2003. “This year the projected estimate by December is $ 6 billion, clocking more than 100 per cent growth,” she discloses and adds China, Germany, Australia and Canada are earning huge profits for them and that LCD monitors have generated maximum global business.
|
|
Grasim makers gear up for global competition
Bhiwani, November 5 Mr. S. Krishanmoorthy, Chief Operating Officer of the mill, while addressing a press conference in the mill premises here today said the management had stepped up the process of innovation in the mill. “We cannot overlook the challenges that are coming up in the national and international market with the changing trends of fashion and clothing”, he said and added that ‘Grasim’ had its own place and credibility in the global market with respect to production and quality. He said by adopting new measures, production of our popular brands would increase, besides improvement in quality. “We have constituted a team of specialists that would ponder over bringing the quality up to international standards”, Mr Krishnamoorthy said. He added that new techniques were being imported and meetings with foreign experts were being held to popularise our brands in the international market. He said new machines with modern techniques would be installed for qualitative production. At present, 40 percent of the total production was being exported, he maintained.
|
|
Nath seeks liberal services from trading partners
New Delhi, November 5 This was India’s core objective at the WTO negotiations, he said. “Considering that outsourcing activities are undertaken through this mode (Mode 1 or cross border supply of services) and in view of the comparative advantage and potential IT-enabled services for India, it is to our benefit to achieve better access for our service suppliers under Mode 1 by getting our trading partners to fully bind the existing regime,” Mr Nath said while speaking at meeting organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). He said the idea is to freeze the existing liberalisation in these two Modes (Modes 1 and 4) in those countries, thus removing even the possibility of future hurdles in outsourcing and pre-empting any defensive action on their part subsequently, which could affect India’s market access. Referring to FDI in accounting services sector, Mr Nath mentioned at present foreign service providers were not allowed to undertake statutory audit of companies in India. However, under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), negotiations India had received several requests from her trading partners for opening up of Mode 3 for investment. “This is something which your profession should debate. Since most arrangements are reciprocal ones, we have to weigh whether we have more to gain or more to lose,” he said. Recently, the General Council of the WTO on August 1, 2004, adopted a Framework Agreement providing a road map for further negotiations under the Doha Work Programme.
|
|
MFIs to revamp rural credit
New Delhi, November 5 Addressing the panchayat representatives gathered here from across the country in “National Presentation on Rural Business Hubs: Economic Empowerment Through Panchayats,” Mr Chidambaram said the “government has identified the model of MFIs to boost the rural credit besides increasing through self-help groups (SHGs) and other institutions.” He announced that for the development of rural business hubs, the government would provide finance to the entrepreneurs through venture capital fund under financial institutions. There is a tremendous opportunity in agri-business, handicraft and other sectors, he said. The UPA government is committed to bring prosperity in rural India, he said. “we have already announced double the rural credit in next three years. This year we are all set to meet the target of 30 per cent growth in rural credit to Rs 1,05,000 crore,” he said adding with in the next two and half years the number of SHGs would rise to over 5 lakh from the present level of 1.85 lakh. Appealing to the panchayat representatives to develop rural sector, Finance Minister said though the government had made a provision of Rs 8,000 crore this year under rural infrastructure development fund (RIDF) the states were not coming forward with project proposals.
|
|
|
Air Sahara launches Hub Hyderabad
Hyderabad, November 5 “Hub Hyderabad” would connect it to other Indian cities and international destinations, President of the airlines Ronojoy Dutta told newspersons at the launch ceremony here. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who was the chief guest, announced a number of incentives for the aviation industry, including rebate on sales tax on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) on slab system to attract more and more airlines to have such operations. The state government is providing pro-active support for a new world-class international Airport, which will come up soon at Shamshabad, near here, he added. Mr Datta said that in the first phase, Air Sahara would operate 126 flights per week from Hub Hyderabad and would connect it to domestic cities — Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Pune, Goa, Cochin, Bangalore, Chennai,
Bhubaneshwar, Kolkata, Coimbatore and Lucknow. The additional service is being opened for sale from today and service will commence on February 3, 2005, Mr Dutta
said. — PTI
|
bb
NTPC stock Biocon Tata Motors |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
Chandigarh, November 5
Inflation up