Economy & Banking Current Affairs
CBDT Signed 7 Advance Pricing Agreements to cut Tax Litigation
- The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) signed seven more unilateral Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs) with Indian taxpayers on July 18, 2016.
- The APAs provide for signing an agreement between a taxpayer and the income tax department- on an appropriate transfer pricing methodology for determining the value of assets and taxes on intra-group overseas transactions.
- The scheme attempts to provide certainty to taxpayers in the domain of transfer pricing by specifying the methods of pricing and setting the prices of international transactions in advance.
Fourth Tranche of the Sovereign Gold Bond Opened
- The fourth tranche of the Sovereign Gold Bond scheme was opened on July 18, 2016. The scheme will get an interest of 4% annually for the period funds are transferred from clearing corporations to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
- Minimum investment under the Gold Bond scheme is 1 gm. Maximum investment under the Gold Bond scheme is 500 gm. Interest to be obtained under the Gold Bond scheme is at a fixed rate of 2.75% payable every six months.
- The bonds are tradable through stock exchanges—NSE and BSE. The Gold Bond scheme is available in DEMATS and paper form. The Gold Bond scheme has a tenure of eight years, with exit options in the ,5th, 6th and 7th year.
- At time of exit the bond can be redeemed at market rate of gold. The gold bond can be used as collateral to avail a loan. Capital gain tax will be exempted on redemption.
India’s First Centre of Excellence Launched
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Internet of Things (IoT) in Bengaluru, to enable rapid adoption of IoT technology and foster a new growth strategy as well empower India to have a leap frog advantage in the domain on July 11, 2016.
- It is a joint venture by National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY) and Education and Research Network (ERNET), the CoE will be run on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model with seed fund from the government and will be managed by NASSCOM.
- In India, Internet of Things (IoT) can be leveraged to address issues like transport system, parking, electricity, waste management, water management and women’s safety to create smart cities, smart health services, smart manufacturing and smart agriculture.
- The smart city and digital India campaign can also leverage IoT to bring about innovative applications and domain capability across verticals.
