The Finance Ministry (FM) is considering reopening assessments of taxpayers found to possess undisclosed foreign assets and bank accounts to up to 16 years as against six years now.

Exports of as many as 68 services, including banking and asset management, will be eligible for refund of service tax.. The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has order to streamline the process of sanctioning of refund claims arising on account of service tax on input services that have gone into exports of services, has sought public comments by November 30 on the draft circular. However, if the input service has made no contribution to exports and has been exclusively utilised for domestic operations, it would not be eligible to refund.

Karnataka High Court had ruled that payments made for imported software will face withholding tax
This Verdict is likely to hit the likes of GE, Sonata Software and HP.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has asked companies to disclose details of share
purchases by acquirers and Persons Acting in Concert (PAC) to include all voting rights and warrants held by the promoters and other insiders during their regulatory filings with stock exchanges. Under the new format, they (acquirers and PAC) have to provide additional disclosures about warrants and any other instrument which have voting rights, besides their disclosures regarding acquisition of shares/voting rights / and holding by them in the target company. The disclosures are mandatory. In the new format for disclosure acquirer will disclose his holdings in the target company before the acquisition under consideration, they will give details of the holdings being acquired and holding
after the acquisition.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that Indians who have Non-Resident Accounts in the country can now hold them in any currency which is fully convertible. Earlier, FCNR (B) account holders were allowed to hold accounts in only certain currencies such as the Pound Sterling, US dollar, Japanese yen, Euro, Canadian dollar and Australian dollar.

3i, Europe's biggest listed private equity firm, plans to raise up to $1.5 billion for its second India fund, but its investment choice will widen to healthcare and education from infrastructure as the sector is plagued by policy paralysis.

To cushion the global slowdown's impact on exporters, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced a two per cent interest subsidy on rupee export credit for handicrafts, hand looms, carpets and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

One percent interest subvention on housing loans up to Rs15 lakhs, compared with Rs10 lakhs at present. The subvention will be given when the total cost of the house is less than Rs25 lakhs. Currently, this limit is set at Rs20 lakhs.

The Reserve Bank of India has asked banks to seek approval from company boards before selling derivative products to them.The Reserve Bank of India also said while modifying the 'Comprehensive Guidelines of Derivatives' that before offering any derivative product to clients, banks should obtain board resolution from the corporate which explicitly mentions the limit assigned by the corporate to the bank.

In a move that could bring cheer to bank depositors, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced
deregulation of the interest rate on savings bank deposits with immediate effect.

The Chartered Accountants Profession has grown from strength to strength over last few decades. The backbone of strength of the Chartered Accountants profession is education and training mechanism adopted by the profession which predominantly includes 3 years practical training under
a Chartered Accountant Firm or partly as Industrial Training (Optional). The practical training ensures that the students are trained in actual day-to-day working, business processes, internal control mechanism, financial management, management accounting and preparation of financial statements besides compliance of corporate laws and tax laws in real time situation. An access to CA students of actual affairs of business organizations enable them to understand the theoretical education more effectively and once qualified as a chartered accountant it enable them to effectively and efficiently deliver up to the expectation of the employers/ clients. This approach has created double jeopardy to such students. They are unable to directly understand and bring out solution for professional issues and even for day today routine professional working they find themselves not fully suitable for the job. This results into rejection of such cases of dummy students once they qualified as a less trained
Chartered Accountants by service sector as well as practicing firms of Chartered Accountants as they may not be found themselves suitable for the desired job profile. In a large number of cases this has resulted into reduction of remuneration package for such less trained chartered accountants by 20% to 60% resulting into mental, emotional and financial stress after qualifying as a Chartered Accountant. A failure to undertake practical training seriously results into a permanent loss of confidence, capability and capacity to deliver as per international standard. In certain cases the firms where such articles get registered may not have adequate work to give all round experience to the students and
in such cases a special emphasis on secondment or industrial training will be necessary. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India need to address the aforesaid issues very effectively and forcefully so as to ensure that all the students undergo the desired level of education and training so that they have adequate opportunities once they qualify and commence their career. This is the responsibility
of all chartered accountants in practice to ensure that dummy training is finished which is a menace to the profession and they should not permit the students to participate in any such activities as it is hampering and adversely impacting their own profession apart from ruining the career of the students. Allowing an articled trainee for doing dummy training is self-suicidal for the entire
profession. The current atmosphere in respect of fresh chartered accountants qualified recently is a clear evidence of mounting risk on the entire profession. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India need to take adequate action against private coaching classes who are not adhering to time discipline laid down by the Institute. This will require strict disciplining.

It has been noted that off late a large number of students misled by ill considered advices are
concentrating mainly on taking coaching classes and not give adequate attention to their training.

The Government of India has taken initiative to set up Regulators to regulate Capital Market (SEBI), to regulate Insurance Companies (IRDA), to regulate Telecom Sector (TRAI), to regulate Power Sector (Central and State level Electricity Regulation Commission). The Regulator of Financial Sector, Reserve Bank of India, has already been functioning effectively. The other regulators, as aforesaid have added significant value in development and regulation of the respective sectors. The Real Estate Sector is the backbone of the Indian economy as a large amount of development is taking place in commercial real estate as well as in the residential real estate, besides infrastructural real estate sector.

Major Issues

Real estate sector is facing a major challenge because of the following issues:

• Agreements between Real Estate Developer and the customer are typically one sided and do not provide for any implication for delay or failure on the part of the developer.
• A large number of Real Estate Developers commence the booking and sales of the real estate even much before obtaining possession, control and ownership of the land in question without an appropriate license/ permission to develop the real estate project being sold. The investors generally are left high and dry.
• A number of projects are inordinately delayed.
• In case of delayed delivery the developers try to coax the customers to seek refund with nominal interest with the view to profit by selling to others as over the period of time land prices escalate.
• The money collected from sale of one project is diverted for acquisition of further land for some other projects using low cost money to hoard land with ulterior motive to gain there from, this also  delay implementation of the project.
• Disclosures by the real estate developer are generally incomplete.
• Compliance and documentation requirements are not clearly prescribed.
• There is no grievance mechanism
• The rate of interest for the delayed payment by the investor and rate of interest/ penal charges for delay in completion of the project and circumstances in which such interest/penal charges may not become payable, are not prescribed.
• The property titles, land records, charges created on them and the agreement executed in relation to a particular property are required to become completely transparent and available for public inspection, something similar to MCA-21 platform.