CBDT brought out an instruction mandating that no person under verification is required to attend the I-T office ‘personally under any circumstance and at any stage.’
The CBDT on Tuesday asked the taxman to ensure there is no “threat, warning or show cause” notice to taxpayers contacted by it under ‘Operation Clean Money’ that is aimed at checking black money post-note ban.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the policy- making body of the Income Tax department, brought out an eight-page instruction leaflet clearly mandating that no person under verification as part of the operation is required to attend the I-T office “personally under any circumstance and at any stage.”
“It should be ensured that the communications made online with the persons under verification should be in very polite language without containing any element of threat or warning.
No show cause of any kind should be given,” it stated.
The department had sent SMSes and emails to 18 lakh people who made suspicious deposits of over Rs 5 lakh during the 50-day demonetization period as part of this operation and close to six lakh people have replied on the e-filing portal and have acknowledged to have made such deposits by February 15.
This exercise has been called ‘Operation Clean Money’ by the CBDT.
These are the first set of official guidelines issued by the Board with regard to the execution and assessment of the data received under this operation after taxpayers and others had raised doubts about possible harrasment by the taxman.
Asking the taxman to keep their queries “relevant and limited in number” as this exercise is only a preliminary verification process, the CBDT has asked the Assessing Officers (AO) to keep their seniors in loop while processing these cases.
It further added a word of caution that “even telephonic queries (with taxpayers) are to be avoided.” “It is reiterated that no independent enquiry or third party verifications are required to be made by the AO outside the online portal. Whatever information is necessary during verification, the same has to be collected through the person under verification using online platform only,” the instructions, issued to all field offices of the I-T department, said.
It has been mentioned that in case the AO is “satisfied” by the explanation provided by the taxpayer then the case should be closed electronically “without any physical interface with the person concerned.”
It has also asked region in-charges of the department to hold sessions and meetings with the taxpayers, trade bodies and Chartered Accountants (CAs) for those people who have not yet filed their responses.
The CBDT also gave a gist of execution to be followed as if suspicion of black funds is found to be true: “A holistic view should be adopted looking into the various aspects of the circumstances leading to deposit of cash (like family size, financial status and background of person) and uniformity in approach must be adopted while forming a view about quantum of undisclosed income,” it said.
The CBDT has also said verification under this exercise should be completed quickly so that erring taxpayers can avail the one-time window of the Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY) that ends on March 31, to disclose their black funds. In those cases, where black money is detected, the CBDT has asked the AO to initiate action like undertaking survey and call for documents from the concerned taxpayer in consultation with his superiors.
“During survey, where there is suspicion of back dating of fictitious cash transactions, CCTV recording of the cash counter at relevant banks may also be checked, if necessary. Reference can also be sent to the investigation wing (of the I-T department) in appropriate cases,” the instructions said.
New Delhi, Feb 21 : Students suffering from Type-I diabetes can now take snacks during Class X and Class XII board examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education.
In a circular, the Board said a significant number of children suffer from Type-I diabetes and need insulin injections at regular intervals to keep their blood glucose levels in check.
These children need frequent meals to avoid hypoglycemia which may otherwise affect their performance, the CBSE circular said.
Such students can carry items like sugar tablets, fruits, snacks and water to the examination centre which has to be kept with invigilators.
The CBSE, however, said the certificate of the student’s medical condition should be forwarded by the principal of the school concerned.
Mumbai : Reliance Jio today announced a strategic partnership with cab aggregator Uber, which will start with allowing users to pay for their rides through a prepaid wallet launched by the telco’s parent company, Reliance Industries.
The users of JioMoney, the wallet offered by Reliance Payment Solutions, will soon be able to request and pay for Uber rides from within the JioMoney app, it said in a statement.
Uber’s newly inducted chief business officer for India Madhu Kannan said the partnership will “unlock synergies across two of the largest user bases in India.”
“Through this strategic partnership we are looking to fast forward to digital solutions at scale for the Indian users,” he was quoted as saying in the statement.
“JioMoney’s integration with Uber will power the rapid migration of many more Uber transactions to the digital platform,” JioMoney’s business head Anirban S Mukherjee said.
As part of the partnership, Jio and Uber will work together and explore various opportunities to progressively enrich and enhance the experience of their users through complementary programmes, it said.
JioMoney and Uber will offer exclusive incentives to every user paying for Uber rides through JioMoney, it said.
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its verdict on whether to refer the matters pertaining to the ban on entry of women aged between 10 to 50 years at Kerala’s Sabrimala temple to its constitution bench.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said it would deliver a judgement regarding the “complexities of the issue” and may refer the matter to a larger bench for its consideration.
“We have heard the counsel appearing for the parties.
Judgement reserved on the question whether the matter should go to a larger bench or not,” the bench, also comprising Justices R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan, said.
The bench asked the parties, including the petitioners, respondents and the amicus curiae, to furnish within a week their written submissions and questions which may be referred to a five-judge constitution bench.
“Counsel for the parties shall file written submissions/ questions, which should fall under the constitutional framework, that is likely to be referred to the larger bench,” the apex court said.
The management of the Sabarimala temple, located on a hilltop in the Western Ghats of Pathanamthitta district, had earlier told the apex court that the ban on entry of women aged between 10 and 50 years was because they cannot maintain “purity” on account of menstruation.
The court is hearing a plea challenging the practice of banning entry of such women in the temple.
During the hearing , the bench observed: “Regarding the complexity of the issue, we will deliver a judgement. We can refer the matter to a constitution bench. It (judgement) will create a background for the constitution bench. You can give us the issue which are to be dwelt upon”.
Senior advocate K K Venugopal, representing the Travancore Devaswom Board which manages the hill-top shrine, argued that the alleged discrimination was not between men and women but between women and women.
He said the matter involves interpretation of Articles of the Constitution and argued that, in this matter, Article 26 of the Constitution would prevail over Article 25.
Article 26 relates to the freedom to manage religious affairs subject to public order, morality and health and states that every religious denomination or any section shall have the right to manage its own affairs in matters of religion, while Article 25 speaks of freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion.
Baghdad : An estimated 2,000 IS fighters are left in west Mosul to defend their bastion against a massive offensive by the Iraqi security forces, a senior US intelligence official said today.
“There’s about 2,000 remaining,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity during a trip to Iraq by the new Pentagon chief, Jim Mattis.
The estimate which the US-led coalition supporting Iraqi forces gave before the October 17 launch of a huge operation on Mosul was that the city was defended by 5,000 to 7,000 jihadists.
The coalition has not provided figures but it has said that the four-month-old campaign on Mosul had inflicted heavy casualties on IS.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi ground forces, receiving air support from the coalition as well as from its own aircraft, are involved in the operation, seen as the culmination of efforts to retake the land the government lost to the jihadist organisation in 2014.
Commanders and experts expect that the fighting in west Mosul could be the bloodiest yet.
The neighbourhoods that lie west of the Tigris River that divides the city are densely populated, have narrow streets that will be impassable for some military vehicles and are home to populations that could be more hostile that on the east bank.
Mattis, a retired Marine general who commanded troops during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has been touring the region and arrived in Baghdad early Monday on a unannounced visit.
Indore : Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman A S Kiran Kumar today said the country has the capability to develop a space station, but it needed a long-term approach and an ambitious planning.
His comment follows ISRO display of technological prowess last week by launching 104 satellites in a single mission.
“We have all the capabilities to set up a space station.
The day the country takes the decision, we will ‘ok’ the project. Just draw a policy and provide us necessary funds and time,” Kumar said here.
He was in the city to attend the foundation day ceremony of Raja Ramanna Center for Advanced Technology (RRCAT).
“We still talk about what would be the immediate benefits of a manned space mission. That is why the country hasn’t made up its mind about when to invest in a space station,” he said.
A long-term thinking was needed for setting up a space station, he said, adding “the sooner the better.”
Kumar said ISRO was also mulling tying up with the industry to enhance the country’s satellite launching capability.
Many more satellites were needed to keep a tab on the land and weather conditions and to enhance the communication network, he said.
This would be possible with increase in the number of satellite launches, for which the country needed to enhance the basic infrastructure and reduce the cost of equipment, he added.
The number of companies manufacturing small satellites has gone up across the world, but these companies could not launch them, therefore this area had immense commercial potential and India could tap it by enhancing the launch facilities, the ISRO chief said.
The air Indians breathe is turning more toxic by the day and an average of two deaths take place daily due to air pollution, says a new study.
According to medical journal The Lancet, over a million Indians die every year due to air pollution and some of the worst polluted cities of the world are in India.
The study released this week but based on 2010 data estimates that globally 2.7-3.4 million preterm births may be associated with PM2.5 exposure and South Asia is the worst hit accounting for 1.6 million pre-term births. The study says causes of air pollution and climate change are intricately linked and needed to be tackled together.
The Lancet concludes that climate change posed both a “potentially catastrophic risk to human health”, while conversely being “the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century” if the right steps are taken. The smog over northern India is extracting a heavy toll, every minute two lives are lost in India due to ambient air pollution, the study published in The Lancet says.
Further, according an estimate by the World Bank, this would amount to a whopping $38 billion loss in income towards labour in India.
Air pollution has also emerged as the deadliest form of pollution and the fourth leading risk factor for premature deaths worldwide, it says.
Recently, 48 leading scientists released the study and they find that Patna and New Delhi the worst polluted cities of the world for PM 2.5 levels or the fine particulate matter that hurts the heart most. The study notes that a broader evidence base on interrelated health and climate change trends will notably help demonstrate clear co-benefits of action.
An estimated 18,000 people die every day due to air pollution exposure, making it the world’s largest single environmental health risk.
The World Bank in turn estimates it costs the global economy $225 billion a year in related lost labour income.
Contradicting some of the Indian reports, The Lancet says coal fired power plants contribute to 50% of the ambient air pollution.
Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Anil Madhav Dave recently admitted in Parliament that the country spends a mere Rs 7 crore annually on monitoring air pollution for a vast country of India’s size with a 1.3 billion population.
He had also said no credible study to quantify number of people who have developed lung and allied diseases or number of deaths directly as a result of air pollution is available.
Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan, a trained physician himself, says, “Pollution when it starts affecting lungs especially in little children can be a killer, it is like a slow poison and there is no reason for me not to be worried, a lot has been done, but still a lot that needs to be done.”
Meanwhile, called The Lancet Countdown, this study will report annually in The Lancet. With inputs from across the world, some 16 institutions are academic partners of the initiative, including University College London, Tsinghua University and the Centre for Climate & Security among others.
This is special collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) to promote synergies, collaborate on data sources, and ensure strong engagement with Ministries of Health.
Dr Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, Head of the Health and Climate Change team at the World Health Organization, says, “The Paris Agreement was a landmark achievement – the challenge now is to meet the targets agreed by world leaders. “The WHO is working directly with countries to provide evidence of the specific health risks that each of them faces, and the health opportunities of a resilient, low carbon future – as well as the support that they need to respond to this defining health issue of our time.”
According to the WHO, compared with a future without climate change, the following additional deaths for the year 2030 are projected, 38,000 due to heat exposure in elderly people, 48,000 due to diarrhoea, 60,000 due to malaria, and 95,000 due to childhood undernutrition.
The WHO projects a dramatic decline in child mortality, and this is reflected in declining climate change impacts from child malnutrition and diarrhoeal disease between 2030 and 2050.
On the other hand, by the 2050s, deaths related to heat exposure (over 100,000 per year) are projected to increase.
Impacts are greatest under a low economic growth scenario because of higher rates of mortality projected in low- and middle-income countries.
By 2050, impacts of climate change on mortality are projected to be greatest in south Asia. These results indicate that climate change will have a significant impact on child health by the 2030s.
The World Bank estimated that 5.5 million lives were lost in 2013 to diseases associated with outdoor and household air pollution, causing human suffering and reducing economic development.
The reports calls air pollution and climate change a “potentially catastrophic risk to human health”. The silver lining is that citizens are waking up and the study finds that almost 60% of the people surveyed in India feel climate change substantially harms people.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has expressed its desire to further collaborate with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for space missions. This news comes after India’s historic launch of 104 satellites, in one go.
In conversation with Times of India, ESA’s Senior Scientific Advisor Mark McCaughrean, who is visiting India for the first time, said, “ESA plans further collaboration with ISRO in various space missions. Had an informal discussion with former ISRO chairman UR Rao at Bangalore. The current ISRO chairman, AS Kiran Kumar was in a meeting in Delhi that day. Earlier, ESA had collaborated with ISRO on Chandrayaan-1 mission to Moon.”
Up until now, the ESA has collaborated with 22 nations including India, China, Japan, Russia and the US in space missions. The ESA is planning 15 space missions, which will include Bepe Colombo to Mercury in 2018 and JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) to Jupiter in 2022.
While the Bepe Colombo will be the first probe to Mercury, it will also be a joint mission between ESA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). McCaughrean believes the Sun’s enormous gravity poses a challenge to place the spacecraft into a stable orbit around Mercury.
On the other hand, the explorer JUICE, will spend at least three years making detailed observations of the giant gaseous planet Jupiter and three of its largest moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. He said, “Missions to Neptune and Uranus haven’t been planned yet as it would take about 20 to 30 years to reach there.”
New Delhi, Feb 20 : India was the world’s largest importer of major arms in the last five years and its overseas procurement was far greater than that of China and Pakistan, a Stockholm-based think-tank said today.
As per latest report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), India accounted for 13 per cent of the total global arms import between 2012 16 which is highest among all the countries.
The report said while China was increasingly able to substitute arms imports with indigenous products, India remained dependent on weapons technology from Russia, the US, Europe, Israel and South Korea.
“India was the world’s largest importer of major arms in 2012 16, accounting for 13 per cent of the global total,” the leading think-tank said.
It said India increased its arms imports by 43 per cent between 2007 11 and 2012 16 and in the last four years its global procurement was far greater than those of its regional rivals China and Pakistan.
In the last five years, the report found that trade of major weapons has increased to its highest volume since the Cold War, triggered mainly by sudden spurt in demand from Middle East and Asia.
Saudi Arabia was the second largest arms importer in 2012-16, with an increase of 212 per cent compared with 2007 11. Arms imports by Qatar went up by 245 per cent.
According to the report, Russia accounted for a 23 per cent share of global exports in the period 2012 16 and 70 per cent of its arms exports went to India, Vietnam, China and Algeria.
The US was the top arms exporter in 2012 16 with a one- third share of global arms exports and its supplies rose by 21 per cent compared with 2007 11. Almost half of its arms exports went to the Middle East, said the report.
The report said China’s share of global arms exports rose from 3.8 to 6.2 per cent between 2007 11 and 2012 16.
The Palaniswami government won the confidence vote in the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Saturday by a comfortable 122-11 margin after high drama and bedlam in the House.
The vote was preceded by eviction of principal opposition DMK and walkout by its allies, which have 98 legislators in the 234-member House, in protest.
Former Chief Minister Panneerselvam could muster only 11 votes, ending the prolonged stalemate triggered by his rebellion and by conviction of AIADMK chief VK Sasikala after being elected the Legislature Party leader.
Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, while appointing Edappadi K Palaniswami as the chief minister after he was propped by Sasikala, had given him 15 days time to prove his majority.
The vote was taken after two adjournments due to pandemonium and charges of attacks by DMK members.
Speaker P Dhanapal and Leader of Opposition MK Stalin said their shirts were torn in the fracas in the House.
GST council meet took place on Saturday in Udaipur, wherein the Draft Compensation Bill was approved. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that they plan to bring the GST bill in the second phase of Budget session which begins on March 9.
However the CGST, IGST, SGST draft bills were not cleared in Saturday’s meeting and will be taken up for discussion in the next meeting which will be held on March 4 and 5 in Delhi.
Addressing media after the meeting, Jaitley also added that there was discussion and clarification on delegation of power, extend of exemption of taxes and agriculture in the meeting, but a final call hasn’t been taken in the matter.
He also added that if they manage to clear the legally vetted drafts in the next meeting, then they will be able to place the GST draft before the Parliament in the upcoming Budget session and discuss the laws. That would lead to speedy implementation and the state assemblies could also discuss the provisions of the bill then.
Earlier, the ninth council meeting saw no consensus being made on levying and collection of Integrated GST, a special privilege given to the Central Government with regards to imposing GST on inter-State supply of goods and services. The GST proposal is one that has been deemed as “much-awaited” by industry analysts on several occasions. It has been glorified as an amalgamation of all indirect taxes to be paid on sale, manufacture and consumption of goods and services on a national level.
Additionally, it is said to be an initiative that would simplify monitoring and collecting indirect taxes, owing to the fact that post its incorporation, indirect taxes would all fall under a single bracket.
The constitutional amendment containing the GST was passed in August 2016.
A proposal to mobilise up to 100,000 National Guard troops was part of a draft memo being circulated at the Department of Homeland Security.
The White House on Friday said there was no plan to utilise the National Guard to round up unauthorised immigrants, after a news report asserted that the proposal had been under consideration by the Trump administration.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters he couldn’t categorically say the move had never been discussed anywhere in the administration. The Associated Press reported the proposal to mobilise up to 100,000 National Guard troops was part of a draft memo being circulated at the Department of Homeland Security.
Spicer sharply criticised the report. “There is no effort at all to…utilise the National Guard to round up illegal immigrants,” he said. “This is 100% not true.”
David Lapan, a spokesman for DHS, said the department was “not considering mobilising the National Guard for immigration enforcement.”
The AP said the draft memo, dated January 25, had been circulating among DHS staff for about two weeks and was addressed to the then-acting heads of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Customs and Border Protection.
It reported the 11-page document called for an unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement on the states bordering Mexico – California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas – and also encompassed seven states contiguous to those four — Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
The AP said the memo was meant to serve as guidance to implement the wide-ranging executive order on immigration and border security that President Donald Trump signed on January 25.
A DHS official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the memorandum obtained by The Associated Press was an “early, early version” of a document being prepared by staff for Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. Discussion of the National Guard was dropped before the memo ever made it to Kelly’s desk, the official said.
The memo being prepared for Kelly has not yet been finalised but is expected to be finished soon, the official said.
Moscow : Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has denied reports of phone calls intercepted by The New York Times between Russian intelligence officials and members of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
The Times said that the Russians made contact with Paul Manafort, who briefly served as Trump’s campaign chairman.
Current and former US officials interviewed by the Times declined to identify other Trump associates contacted by the Russians.
Speaking to reporters in Moscow, Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, pointed to the anonymity of the sources, saying that the reports “are not based on any facts, do not point to actual facts.”
The report comes a day after US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned following reports he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his contacts with Russia.