Page 19 - Finance Ministry

DGGI flagged 46% surge in evasion cases worth Rs 1.98 trillion in 2023

140 masterminds behind GST evasion cases and 116 behind ITC frauds were arrested in 2023

GST intel unit detected over Rs 1.98 trn worth tax evasion cases in 2023

The GST intelligence unit detected tax evasion of more than Rs 1.98 lakh crore last year and arrested 140 masterminds who were involved in defrauding the exchequer, the finance ministry said on Thursday. In 2023, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) detected significant GST evasion in diverse sectors like online gaming, casinos, insurance and secondment (import of manpower services). "DGGI has achieved an increase in detection of cases of evasion and voluntary payments. In 2023, DGGI detected 6,323 cases involving evasion of duty of Rs 1,98,324 crore with a voluntary payment of Rs 28,362 crore. 140 masterminds involved in GST evasion were arrested," the ministry said in a statement. This is a significant improvement as compared to 2022 wherein 4,273 cases were detected, amounting to duty of Rs 90,499 crore, and voluntary payment of Rs 22,459 crore and 97 arrests were made. There was a 119 per cent increase in the year-on-year amount of duty evasion detected by DGGI an

Inter-ministerial meet next week over issues on trade from Red Sea crisis

The commerce ministry has called a high-level inter-ministerial meet next week to discuss ways to insulate India's trade from the ongoing problems in the Red Sea, a senior official said on Thursday. Senior officials from five ministries -- external affairs, defence, shipping and finance and commerce -- will participate in the deliberations. The commerce ministry has also set up an internal strategic group, comprising additional secretaries of the ministry, to discuss global issues impacting the country's trade on a daily basis and prepare a strategy to deal with them. "The idea of the inter-ministerial meeting is to see how we can strategise our trade so that it gets least affected in such a situation," the official said. The situation around the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping route connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean, has escalated due to recent attacks by Yemen-based Houthi militants. Due to these attacks, the shippers are taking ...

NARCL's offer prices lower than the liquidation value, say bankers

PSBs say this is the reason for slow progress of NPA sale

Govt holds back $600 million plan to replenish strategic oil reserves

India has limited oil storage capacity, with space for only 39 million barrels of crude - barely enough for eight days of the country's consumption - to use in the event of an emergency

DPIIT to announce ranking of states, UTs on startup initiatives on Jan 16

The commerce and industry ministry's arm DPIIT on January 16 will announce ranking of states and union territories for 2022 based on initiatives taken for startups, an official said. The exercise aims to evaluate measures taken by states/UTs to boost the startup ecosystem during a specified period. It also aimed at supporting states and Union territories (UTs) in developing their startup ecosystem and learning from each other's best practices. "The ranking is a periodic capacity building exercise developed and released by DPIIT that evaluates states and UTs on their efforts to build an ecosystem conducive to growth of startups," the official said. The major objectives of the ranking exercise are - facilitating states and UTs to identify, learn and replace good practices, highlighting the policy intervention by States and UTs for promoting startup ecosystem and fostering competitiveness among states. The last ranking was released on July 4, 2022 in which Gujarat, and Karnataka were

CoinDCX sets aside $1 million to aid asset transfers from foreign exchanges

This comes after the finance ministry's FIU last month issued show cause notices to nine offshore crypto exchanges for operating in India 'illegally'

India Inc seeks tax reforms, R&D incentives in upcoming interim Budget: EY

EY said that no major tax amendments or reforms are expected in the upcoming Budget as evidenced from the previous Interim Budgets of 2009, 2014 and 2019

Budget 2024: Rebate under new income tax regime may be hiked to Rs 7.5 lakh

Last week, the PFRDA chairman had said that the body has recommended employer contributions to the National Pension Scheme up to 12 per cent to be exempted from the income tax

Govt's disinvestment target in FY25 could be its lowest in nine years

The Modi government has met its privatisation and divestment target only twice in the last decade, even though its track record outstrips that of previous administrations

Centre has done little to ease TN's financial burden: FM Thangam Thennarasu

The Central government has done precious little to ease Tamil Nadu's financial burden, the state Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu claimed on Friday and accused it of following different yardsticks in devolving funds to states. For every single rupee given to the Centre, the state got back only 29 paise but the ratio was different in the BJP-ruled states, he said. "As I have already mentioned in the Assembly, for every rupee we give to the Centre, we get back just 29 paise. But in BJP-ruled states, this ratio is completely different," Thennarasu told reporters here in response to the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's assertion on Thursday that the Centre released more funds to Tamil Nadu without any discrimination. For instance, from the financial year 2014-15 to 2022-23, the Centre gave Rs 4.75 lakh crore to Tamil Nadu including the Central tax share of Rs 2.46 lakh crore and subsidy of Rs 2.28 lakh crore. At the same time, the direct tax collections accounted to Rs 6.2

Centre expected to maintain fiscal discipline in Interim Budget 2024

Interim budget likely to prioritise fiscal consolidation over populist spending, anticipating fiscal deficit at 4.5% of GDP by FY26

Govt may lower disinvestment goal by 20% after missing FY24 target: Report

The government had set a disinvestment target to raise Rs 51,000 crore for the current financial year. However, only about 20 per cent of this target has been met so far

Finance Ministry approves additional Rs 1,500 cr for FAME-II scheme

Govt had till Dec 26 utilised Rs 8,948 crore of the Rs 10,000 cr allocated under the scheme

Union Budget 2024: Why India's' budget presentation was moved to February 1

India's Union Budget is presented on February 1 annually. This tradition began in the year 2017, until which the budget presentation took place on the last day of February every year

Govt issues bare minimum terms of reference for 16th finance commission

The ToRs for the Commission strictly align with what is broadly enshrined in the Constitution

SJVN gets govt approval to form JVs for 8778 MW hydro, renewable projects

State-owned power producer SJVN Ltd on Monday said it has received the finance ministry's permission to form four joint venture firms for the development of hydro and renewable projects with a total capacity of 8,778 MW in India and Nepal. SJVN will be the leading partner in three joint venture companies, whereas SJVN's wholly-owned subsidiary SJVN Green Energy Ltd (SGEL) will be the leading partner in the fourth JV, a company statement said. According to the statement, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), Ministry of Finance, Government of India has agreed to the proposal of SJVN and Ministry of Power to form four joint venture (JV) companies for the development of Hydro and Renewable Projects in India and Nepal. SJVN will form a JV with Maharashtra State Power Generation Company Ltd to develop 5,000 MW Renewable Energy Projects. Another JV will be formed between SJVN, Government of Arunachal Pradesh and Navyuga Engineering Company Ltd. The JV will ..

India's gross GST collections in December jumps 10.3% to Rs 1.64 trillion

This marks the seventh month so far this financial year with collections exceeding Rs 1.6 trillion

RBI's draft framework advocates for independent members in SRO boards

The struggle to get top-flight IDs on their boards found indirect mention in the first-of-its-kind interaction between the RBI's brass and the boards of state-run banks and private banks

FinMin seeks proposals for final supplementary demands for grants

The finance ministry has sought expenditure proposals for the second and final batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants from various ministries and departments ahead of the Budget session likely to commence in the last week of January. This would be the last session of the 17th Lok Sabha before the general elections and the government would seek expenditure approvals of Parliament for four months till July 2024 through a vote on account. The second batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2023-24 is proposed to be placed before Parliament in the ensuing Budget session, the finance ministry said in an office memorandum. The cases that would be eligible to be incorporated under such demands include those where advances from the Contingency Fund have been granted. Besides, payments against court decree would be included as well as cases where the finance ministry has specifically advised moving the supplementary demand in the winter session, it said. "While processing proposals