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18/04/2017

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05/02/2017

ST, which is an acronym for Goods and Services Tax is now an act under the constitution. GST is the biggest tax reform in India since our independence and it subsumes all the indirect taxes. It is going to be a single tax system on the sale, manufacture and consumption of goods and services. GST aims to cover a wide range of taxes which includes Service Tax, State Value Added Tax(VAT), Additional Customs Duty, Central Excise Duty and a few others at the state level and central too. The consolidation of various taxes will lessen the tax burden on an average taxpayer thus improving his efficiency. A GST council headed by the current Finance Minister will be responsible for the activities involving GST.

Steps involved in filing your GST return:

The taxpayer is required to upload his GST Return-1 either directly on the GST Common Portal or he could upload files via an app. This has to furnished by the 10th day of the month succeeding the month in which goods and services were supplied. Any fluctuation in supply invoices could be handled only by the counter-party purchaser up to the 17th day of the month (a seven day period after GSTR-1). In other words, the supplier is forbidden from uploading any missing invoices after the 10th day.
The GST Common Portal will draft the GST Return-2 of the taxpayer automatically on the basis of the details of the supply invoices that were reported by the counter-party taxpayer.
The purchasing taxpayer has the option to accept or reject or modify the auto drafted provisional GST Return-2.
The Purchasing taxpayer will also be liable to upload additional invoice details in his GST Return-2 in case it has not been uploaded by counter-party taxpayer as described above. In this case, the taxpayer must possess valid and authentic invoices issued by the counter-party taxpayers to indicate he actually received the said supplies.
Taxpayers also have the option to do a reconciliation of inward supplies with counter-party taxpayers during the period of 7 days. They can follow up with their counter-party taxpayers regarding any missing supply invoices in GST Return-1.
Taxpayers will then finalise their GSTR-1 and GSTR-2 by using an online facility at the Common Portal in their accounting applications, examine the liability on their supplies, determine the eligible Input Tax Credit (ITC) on their purchases and then go on to generate the net tax liability for each type of tax from the system. Cash details as per personal register, ITC carried forward from the tax period gone by, ITC reversal, etc. would also come under the GSTR-3.
Post finalisation of the above-mentioned activities, the taxpayer will pay the amount that will be shown in the draft of GSTR-3. It will be generated automatically at the online portal.

03/02/2017

"This is a public sector innovation unthought of in history. A cultural-economic revolution in the making!" exclaimed Monishankar Prasad, a New Delhi-based author and editor, about India's demonetization initiative and subsequent drive towards developing a cashless economy.

The biggest problem with India suddenly removing 86% of its currency from circulation without having an adequate supply of new notes ready to take their place is that fact that India is more reliant on cash than almost any other country on earth. Suddenly, hundreds of millions of people were left without the means to engage economically, to buy the things they wanted and needed, and myriad businesses were left without a readily available mechanism to receive payment for their goods, to buy supplies, or pay their staff.
India’s demonetization scheme was a unilateral initiative that was planned in secret — in a back room of Prime Minister Modi’s home, in fact — by a small group of insiders tied-in with the upper echelons of India’s government. The strategy was to instantly nullify all 500 and 1,000 rupee banknotes, the most common currency denominations in the country, and then eventually replace them with newly designed, more secure 500 and 2,000 rupee notes. This endeavor instantaneously became policy when the prime minister announced it via a surprise television address at 10:15 PM on November 8.

One of Modi’s main brands is that of a corruption fighter, and his demonetization initiative was rushed into effect in an attempt to catch the black market off guard — which could potentially lead to a big payday for the central bank if large amounts of illicit cash wasn’t redeemed. That plan flopped, as almost all of the recalled notes were officially accounted for one way or another.

Read more about Modi's demonetization initiative here, here and here.

But this surprise demonetization also did something else: it pushed millions of new users onto the country’s digital economic grid by virtual fiat. Not even the banks were notified in advance of Modi's plan, and, even with strict exchange limits that prohibited people from exchanging over $60 worth of rupees at a time, they simply didn’t have enough of the newly designed banknotes on-hand to distribute to the masses looking to redeem their canceled notes. Rather than being a 50 day transition, as the Indian government projected, it is looking as if it will take four months to a year before the country's currency supply is restored.

In point, the people of India were left in limbo as the government cancelled the bulk of their currency without providing them with the means to obtain the newly printed notes to replace it. On the surface, this seems as if it was a matter of gross negligence, but there may have been more to it than that. As the demonetization process continues, Modi’s rhetoric is less about fighting corruption and more about transitioning India to a cashless economy.

Up until this campaign, India was an incredibly cash-centric economy. Cash accounted for upwards of 95% of all transactions, 90% of vendors didn’t have card readers or the means of accepting electronic payments, 85% of workers were paid in cash, and almost half of the population didn’t even have bank accounts. Even Uber in India accepted cash — the only country in the world where this option is available — and “Cash on Delivery” was the preferred choice of 70% of all online shoppers.

By temporarily turning off the engines which drove the cash economy, India hoped that more people could be brought into the fold by using track-able — and taxable — digital financing vehicles, like debit cards and e-wallets.
Whether or not India was ready for this cashless revolution is another question.

“Look, you still have a reasonably large part of the population that doesn't even have a bank account,” said Arpan Nangia, the head of the India desk for HSBC’s commercial banking division. “Yes, our position is that everybody should have a bank account and everybody should be transacting through that, but if a large part of your population doesn't even bank it is going to take some time for you to invest before you can say let's go completely cashless.”

However, reservations about the timing of India’s big cashless push at this point are irrelevant. It’s happening, ready or not.

India is currently in the middle of an all out movement to modernize the way things are paid for. New bank accounts are being opened at a heightened rate, e-payment services are seeing rapid growth, cash-on-delivery in e-commerce has crashed, and digitally-focused sectors like the online grocery business have started booming.

“Even the vegetable vendors on the streets have opened up Paytm accounts and they have a machine outside their shop where someone can scan the bar code and make the payment,” Nangia explained.

“A lot more retail outlets are accepting e-wallets, including my laundry provider and my dabbawala," Prasad proclaimed. "This is revolutionary, and survival of the fittest.”

Modi’s demonetization initiative has been a boon for India’s e-payment providers. Paytm reported a three-times surge in new users -- tacking on over 14 million new accounts in November alone. While Oxigen Wallet’s daily average users increased by 167% since demonetization began.

“Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetization announcement, we have suddenly seen a spike in both app downloads & merchant registrations. This spike is now coming from all cities, big and small, pan-India, consisting of small merchants like vegetable vendors, Kirana shopkeepers [small convenience stores], street vendors, rickshaw drivers, taxi’s etc., who’ve signed onto our Oxigen Wallet app for the merchant payments service,” said Pramod Saxena, the founder and CMD of Oxigen Services.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Asiadigicoin have also been the recipients of a positive upswing from Modi’s currency purge — with Bitcoin in particular being driven up in value.

The lack of cash in the economy combined with the buzz around electronic payments systems has also sparked some very innovative solutions. The farmers’ markets of Telangana began experimenting with their own electronic payment system where customers with Aadhar-linked bank accounts could buy vegetables using tokens which could be purchased via debit cards at specialized kiosks.

“These changes indicate towards a more inclusive society in the future,” Saxena said. He then outlined several areas in which India is trying to improve its digital economy, which include simpler, more technologically advanced digital payment systems, increased merchant acceptance, improvements in UPI, which allows monetary transfers between any two bank accounts via a smartphone, as well as a reduction in cash-based transactions.

“The Prime Minister's move to incentivize digital payments will offer a strong support to our ongoing efforts in helping the country leapfrog the cash generation to digital payment solutions," added Deepak Abbot, the senior vice president of Paytm. "This will not only help millions of Indians overcome the hassles of dealing in cash but also act as a significant step towards propelling India to emerge as a truly cashless economy.”

30/12/2016

The Goods and Service Tax (GST) will be a comprehensive nationwide indirect tax on manufacture, sale and consumption of goods and services throughout India. The aim is to have one indirect tax for the whole nation, which will make India a unified common market. GST will be levied and collected at each stage of sale or purchase of goods or services based on the input tax credit method and would make not just manufacturing but also the inter-state transportation of goods more efficient.

How will GST work and what all will it subsume?

GST is a single tax on the supply of goods and services, right from the manufacturer to the consumer. Credits of input taxes paid at each stage will be available in the subsequent stage of value addition, which makes GST essentially a tax only on value addition at each stage. The final consumer will thus bear only the GST charged by the last dealer in the supply chain, with set-off benefits at all the previous stages.

Read our full coverage on the GST Bill and its impact

At the central level, the following taxes will be subsumed: Central Excise Duty, Additional Excise Duty, Service Tax, Countervailing Duty, and Special Additional Duty of Customs.

At the State level, the following taxes will be subsumed: State Value Added Tax/Sales Tax, Entertainment Tax, Central Sales Tax, Octroi and Entry tax, Purchase Tax, Luxury tax, and Taxes on lottery, betting and gambling.

How will GST be beneficial?

The introduction of GST would be a significant step in the reform of indirect taxation in India. Amalgamating several central and state taxes into a single tax will mitigate cascading or double taxation, facilitating a common national market. This would be hugely beneficial for consumers as the tax burden on inter-state logistics will be cheaper. A common tax would mean easy compliance and uniformity of tax rates and structures for industry and would thus contribute to ease of doing business by removing cascading costs. For central and state governments, GST is expected to lead to easier administration and enforcement. From the consumer point of view, the biggest advantage would be in terms of a reduction in the overall tax burden on goods.

By when will it be implemented?

Assuming the Constitution Amendment Bill does pass in the Monsoon Session, GST will still not be in force before April 1, 2017. And that is putting it optimistically. Apart from the legislative process mentioned above, the states, India Inc, and industries and service providers big and small, will also have to prepare themselves for a completely new nationwide tax regime.

How would GST be administered in India?

There will be two components of GST – Central GST (CGST) and State GST (SGST). Both Centre and States will simultaneously levy GST across the value chain. Tax will be levied on every supply of goods and services. Centre would levy and collect Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST), and States would levy and collect the State Goods and Services Tax (SGST) on all transactions within a State.

The input tax credit of CGST would be available for discharging the CGST liability on the output at each stage. Similarly, the credit of SGST paid on inputs would be allowed for paying the SGST on output. No cross utilization of credit would be permitted.

24/12/2016

Black money is unaccounted money, illegally acquired wealth or other assets made through accepting bribery or other morally depraved acts. It is not just cash stashed at hidden places in the house or in benami accounts. It is in various forms like shares, bonds, securities, or other forms of instruments. It may be in the form of real estate-houses, shops, plot or other assets like cars. It may be in the form of gold, silver, diamonds or jewellery.

It is believed that there is a huge amount of black money in India, estimated to be 200 million crores. It is also said that in our country over 200 crore rupees of black money is created every year. This reflects the magnitude of black money market in India. This also bears testimony to the amount of corruption prevailing in the country and the illegal activities being carried out. The biggest means of creating black money is avoidance of income tax and sales tax.

Most of the businessmen never show the actual income they earn. They either never maintain any books of account or also keep false accounts to be shown to the authorities. As a result, the tax which is due to them is never paid. But the money they make out of their business keeps on accumulating with them. After a period of time when their wealth increases to huge amounts, they cannot show where this money has come from. This is black money. While shopping, most of us never ask for a bill from the shopkeeper or the dealer. We never realise its consequences.

Thousands of crores of rupees in sale tax is avoided because of absence of billing. Many dealers do not deposit the sales tax collected from the customers with the sales tax authorities. This is evasion of sales tax. The government has introduced the system of Value Added Tax (VAT) whereby the sellers of goods are taxed for the value added. But even here, the actual sale shown by the dealers is much less than what actually is.

It is believed that in export dealings the billing is inflated by an average of 20 per cent. This amount goes into the pocket of the dealer without payment of any tax this amount taken together runs into hundreds of crores of rupees every year. This is nothing but black money.

The other means through which large amount of black money is created is through illegal trades. All income that is received because of smuggling of gold, brown sugar, narcotics and other goods which cannot be sold is black money. The cost of these goods is so high that dealing in them makes billions of rupees. Since the dealings are illegal, the money is not genuine earning but black or illegal wealth. There are international smuggling rackets which facilitate this kind of trade. India is supposed to be on the transit route for these kinds of goods coming from West Asia to South East Asia or vice-versa.

Then there is smuggling of goods on the borders, viz. the borders between India and Pakistan, between India and Nepal, India and Bangladesh and India and Myanmar. Despite a tight vigil by Border Security Force, goods worth crores of rupees are smuggled from and into India everyday. The smugglers have millions of rupees as black money.

Politicians in India have a large amount of black money. Most of them have assets worth crores of rupees-much more than their known sources of income. Cases are pending in courts against many of them on charges of having acquired these assets by illegal means. The ministers while in power collect money, mainly from big businessmen for allotment of petrol pumps, plots of commercial land, licenses for doing particular business like liquor contracts, setting up Special Economic Zones, etc. In their tenure they accumulate several crores of rupees. Nobody checks them though everybody knows it.

The cases filed against them yield no result.
The executive classes including the bureaucrats are the other class of people who have accumulated black money by taking bribes. Some of the bureaucrats who have been under the radar of income tax authorities were caught with properties and other assets, including cash of crores of rupees. Our executives and bureaucrats are also having hundreds of crores of rupees as black money.

The black money is illegally acquired money. A large part of it is avoided tax. Thousands of crores of rupees which should have gone to the government coffers go to the personal accounts of black marketeers. If the government had received this money it would have used it to take up new projects of development or would have completed the ongoing projects in shorter time.

The government would have built new hospitals, schools, colleges, roads, set up more industries, etc. thus, the black marketeers have blocked the country’s development for their personal greed. The bureaucrats and politicians who have accepted bribes have made huge money for them, and they have encouraged favouritism, making allotments to undeserving people. This does not augur well for society. Our country is the greatest democracy in the world. It upholds the values of fairness and quality. Such favouritism and pick and choose for bribery and gratification is against the principles of democracy.

Black money is docile money. It does not play any economic function. Thousands of crores of rupees lie idle in lockers and benami accounts making no contribution to the development of the country. India, at the threshold of fast economic development, needs huge amount of capital. The government funds are short because of tax avoidance and other corrupt practices by the hoarders of black money. If the black money reaches the government, there will be faster development.
Some people believe that the black money in India is a parallel economy worth thousands of millions of rupees.

It is also performing an important economic function. This money creates demand for goods and services helping the industry and producers of services. Lying in bank accounts whether in benami or other accounts, this money is utilized by banks for lending purposes to needy businessmen. Despite these arguments, one has to say that the accumulation of black money is a poor reflection on our society. Corruption and tax avoidance must be dealt with a heavy hand so that the dues to the government reach it and are utilized for the benefit of the society.

22/12/2016

For decades, the women’s movement has been underlining many important aspects of women’s role in the economy, as was outstandingly articulated in ‘Towards Equality: report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India’ in 1975. The movement has been highlighting the need to recognise the vital, if invisible and uncounted, role which women play in the economy and argues for their recognition in policy, data collection and programme design. It has been emphasising that economic agency or a livelihood is a critical requirement for self-affirmation. It also emphasises that economic power within and outside the household makes a difference to gender relations.

We see these thoughts resonating in this judgment which says that the agency, freedom and intra-household power of women are strengthened when women are given an economic value; when they are enabled to hold a position in the economy through employment. And by relating women’s economic empowerment to their ability to access, contribute to and direct economic development, the judges further expand on the value of their order. They state: “There is a bidirectional relationship between economic development and women’s empowerment, defined as improving the ability of women to access the constituents of development — in particular health, education, earning opportunities, rights, and political participation”.

Scholars who have explored and studied women’s work, especially among the poorest in the most marginalised locales and communities, have been highlighting the importance of recognising women’s work, the importance of women as economic agents. These include those who try and understand self-employed working women and those whose work focuses on revealing the value that women bring to agriculture, food production, and the handicaps they suffer from lack of recognition. Further, activists have been detailing how women organise themselves to escape from various types of bo***ge, exclusion and exploitation.

During the preparation of the 11th Five Year Plan, women scholars highlighted the kinds of changes that were required to be initiated in the development, design and allocation of funding in the Plan if women’s roles in the economy were to be taken into account.

All this affirms what the judges said: economic agency is one of the most enabling elements to shift gender relations of power, to release women from the kind of oppression, violence and powerlessness that they experience. Women’s inclusion in the development design would enhance the outcomes of development it the self.

17/12/2016

The total value of the 500 and 1,000 currency is around Rs 15 lakh crore, of which Rs 12 lakh crore has go to the bank. But, only about Rs 4 lakh crore of new notes is given back in the market, which may increase to Rs 6 lakh crore by this year-end, he said. This will lead to a shortfall, and adversely impact rural India.
Basu also debunked some of the points released by the Union finance ministry a day after the announcement of demonetisation. The finance ministry aimed at controlling the fake currency in the system, which is not achieved through demonetisation, he said. "People are giving the fake notes to the bank and taking the regular notes, instead printing better quality notes will help," said Basu.
He also pointed out that the whole world is moving towards a cashless society. But India, where 98% of the transactions is cash-based, it is very difficult to move towards a cashless economy.

08/12/2016

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154107851912686&id=62680227685

Research shows lawyers and law students are at risk for mental health and addiction issues.

04/12/2016

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04/12/2016

Indian govt has never understood Kashmir. Never will. This article is simple, but describes our reality very well. It uses the terms, "mutual social trust and understanding". This is something that capitalist society will never understand (except between Modi and Adani, Rothschilds and Trump).

Demonetisation hasn’t affected Kashmir at all

03/12/2016

TOPIC SUBJECT TO DISCUSSION IS HOW CAN A CHILD BE PROTECTED.
Most of the international legal instruments on protection of a right of a child provides a mechanisms and measures on how right of a child can be protected.
The principle of the best interest of a child is one of the most important principle for the protection of a child. As far as right of a child is concern, it can be said that, protection of a child Must start from physical and psychological abuse, neglect or any other form of exploitation such sale, trafficking,abduction.
For the best interest of a child, child who has suffered such abuses should be rehabilitated back to society and receive necessary treatment.
CHILD LABOUR
many international legal instruments, give measures and precaution while employing children under age. In what so ever circumstances, though it is for the best interest of a child, and without exception to the generality, no child can be employed for hard labour, that is to say every child has a right to be protected from economic exploitation and any other work that is hazardous to the child's health and most likely to interfere with his health.

26/11/2016

A new development has turned the direction of the recent sexual harassment case at St. Stephens College, Delhi. The 22 year old student victim handed over a few audio clips to the police, which reveal that Principal Valson Thampu discouraged the victim to pursue the complaint against college’s Asst. Prof. Satish Kumar for sexually harassing her. The audio clips suggest that the Principal conveyed to the victim that pursuing the complaint forward will turn media attention towards the college and result in image loss. Even though the audio clips have not been officially verified, the student has claimed that the persons heard in the clip are Satish Kumar and the Principal. Student groups and other protestors have made demands to sack Principal Valson Thampu. Regarding the main accused Satish Kumar, today, the Delhi High Court has issued a Stay Order staying his arrest till August 17th, 2015. The Stay Order directed that, “Meanwhile, the petitioner (Kumar) should join the investigation as and when asked by the respondent (police)”. The advocate appearing for the accused contended that, “No allegation of molestation was levelled in the mail or the complaint she (girl) wrote to the college principal. The allegation levelled in the FIR was false and fabricated”. Whereas the Delhi Police counsel had argued that as the complainant handed over audio clips of talks between the Principal and the accused which reveal that they had tried to stop the victim from persuading the complaint further, the police must be granted permission to arrest the accused. It needs to be remembered that if the voice is identified by the Police as belonging to the Principal, he is equally guilty for shielding the accused.

St. Stephens Sexual Harassment Case: Audio Tapes suggest that Principal Valson Thampu tried to bury the Case