Non-compliance to be ‘very costly’ for companies: Government

Last week, the Parliament cleared a bill to further amend the Companies Act.

Sending out a strong message to corporates, the government has said non-compliance will be “very costly” and strong deterrents will be there to curb the dangerous adventure of using companies for wrongful purposes.

Continuing the clampdown on illicit fund flows, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has already struck off more than 2.24 lakh companies that have not been doing business for long and has disqualified over three lakh directors associated with such entities.

Against this backdrop, Corporate Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas said things are being simplified for legitimate businesses while checks are being strengthened against illegal business activities.

Highlights

  • Ministry of Corporate Affairs has already struck off more than 2.24 lakh companies that have not been doing business for long
  • It has also disqualified over three lakh directors associated with such entities

“It should be very easy to be compliant and very costly to be non-compliant. We want this… There should be a strong deterrent against illegal business. People using the company for wrong purposes, that should be a very dangerous adventure,” he told PTI in an interview.

About the ongoing action with respect to suspected shell companies, he said investigations are being carried out with urgency.

“When you go for prosecution, it should serve as a deterrent. Imprisonment option should essentially be confined to violations involving criminality and fraud,” Srinivas said.

On the scenario of certain genuine entities also facing the heat in the clampdown, Srinivas said every effort is made to ensure that “innocent companies are not inconvenienced”, adding that investigations are carried out only after preliminary scrutiny.

“In any such large exercise, it is not unusual that there could be some collateral damage. It cannot be so perfect but effectively, it is very focused and every effort is made that innocent companies are not inconvenienced,” he noted.

To provide a three-month window for defaulting companies to submit their filings, the ministry would be coming out with the Condonation of Delay Scheme. It is to be in place from January 1 to March 31, 2018.

While making it clear that a law should not be too onerous, he said there is a continuous effort to simplify the law “but non-negotiable in terms of essential compliance”.

Last week, the Parliament cleared a bill to further amend the Companies Act.

The bill would bring about some far reaching changes, Srinivas said, adding that almost 100 sections would get revised and many would contribute towards the ease of doing business.

“At the same time, there is also strengthening of provisions relating to areas such as identification of mismanagement, fraud detection, disclosures and related party transactions,” he said.

The MCA 21 system — which is used by the companies to submit their filings to the ministry — is a strong technology platform that is well entrenched, he noted.

“It is a very robust platform for regulation of companies. It is a huge resource of filings from more than 1.5 million companies. It is user-friendly… It also facilitates better enforcement without being unduly invasive,” Srinivas said.

At the end of November 30, there were a little over 17.12 lakh companies and out of them more than 11.36 lakh entities were active.

Source: Times of India

You can shift residence, fudge address but you can’t avoid income tax notice anymore

Avoiding income tax notices by fudging addresses or shifting residence will now become difficult. Income tax rules have been amended that will allow the tax department to deliver notices to assessees at addresses given by them to banks, insurance companies, post offices etc in case the notice is undeliverable at the address supplied to the tax department.

The government issued a notification dated December 20, 2017 amending the Income Tax Rules to ensure that all notices, summons, requisitions or any other communication issued in your name is delivered to you either via post or e-mail.

As per the notification, in case the communication or notice to be served to the assessee cannot be delivered/transmitted to the available address, as per Rule 127 of the Income Tax Rules, the government may use the address mentioned in the following databases to deliver the communication:
a) Address given by you to the bank;
b) Address given by you to the insurance company;
c) Address given by you to the post office while investing in the Post Office schemes;
d) Address as available in government records;
e) Address available in the records of local authorities;
f) Address of the assessee as furnished in Form 61 to the income tax department under Rule 114D;
g) Address as furnished in Form 61A to the tax department under rule 114E.

As per the earlier norms, the communication to the assessee was sent through post or email at the any of the following addresses:

a) Address available in the PAN database;
b) Address available in the income tax return (ITR) to which the communication pertains to;
c) Address as available in the previous year’s ITR;
d) E-mail address available in the ITR for which communication pertains to;
e) E-mail address as available in the last ITR;
f) Any e-mail address available with the income tax authority.

The notification has been published in the Gazette of India by the Minsitry of India vide Notification No. 98/2017/F. No. 370142/36/2017-TPL

Link: Economic Times

MCA introduces Condonation of Delay Scheme 2018 for defaulting companies

MCA introduces Condonation of Delay Scheme 2018 (CODS-2018) for defaulting companies to file its overdue returns/documents due for filing till 30.06.2017 by temporarily activating DIN of disqualified directors

 

 

 

General Circular No………./2017

File No. 02/04//2017

 

Ministry of Corporate Affairs

5thFloor,‘A’ Wing, Shastri Bhawan

Dr.Rajendra Prasad Road,

NewDelhi-110001.

 

To

 

All Regional Directors,

All Registrar of Companies,

All Stakeholders.

 

Sir,

 

Subject: Condonation of Delay Scheme 2018

Whereas,companies registered under the Companies Act,2013 (or its predecessor Act) are inter-alia required to file their Annual Financial statements and Annual Returns with the Registrar of Companies and non-filing of such reports is an offence under the said Act.

 

Whereas, section 164(2) of the Act read with section 167 of the Companies Act, 2013 [the Act], which provisions were commenced with effect from 01.04.2014, provide for disqualification of a director on account of default by a company in filing an annual return or a financial statement for a continuous period of three years.

 

Whereas, Rule 14 of the Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) Rules, 2014 further prescribes that every director shall inform to the company concerned about his disqualification, if any, under section 164(2), in form DIR-8.

 

Whereas, consequent upon notification of provisions of section 164(2), Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) had launched a Company Law Settlement Scheme 2014 providing an opportunity to the defaulting companies to clear their defaults within the time period specified therein and following the due process as notified.

 

 

Whereas, MCA in September 2017, identified 3,09,614 directors associated with the companies that had failed to file financial statements or annual returns in the MCA21 online registry for a continuous period of three financial years 2013-14 to 2015-16 in terms of provisions of section 164(2) r/w 167(1)(a) of the Act and they were barred from accessing the online registry and a list of such directors was published on the website of MCA.

 

Whereas, as a result of above action, there have been a spate of representations from industry, defaulting companies and their directors seeking an opportunity for the defaulting companies to become compliant and normalize operations.

 

Whereas, certain affected persons have also filed writ petitions before various High Courts seeking relief from the disqualification.

 

Whereas, with a view to giving an opportunity for the non-compliant, defaulting companies to rectify the default, in exercise of its powers conferred under sections 403, 459 and 460 of the Companies Act, 2013, the Central Government has decided to introduce a Scheme namely “Condonation of Delay Scheme 2018” [CODS-2018] as follows.

 

  1. The scheme shall come into force with effect from 01.01.2018 and shall remain in force up to 31.03.2018

 

  1. Definitions – In this scheme, unless the context otherwise requires, –

 

(i) “Act” means the Companies Act, 2013 and Companies Act, 1956 (where ever applicable);

 

(ii) ‘overdue documents’ means the financial statements or the annual returns or other associated documents, as applicable, in the case of a defaulting company and refer to documents mentioned in paragraph 5 of the scheme.

 

(iii) “Company” means a company as defined in clause of 20 of section 2 of the Companies Act, 2013;

 

(iv)  “Defaulting company” means a company which has not filed its financial statements or annual return as required under the Companies Act, 1956 or Companies Act, 2013, as the case may be, and the Rules made thereunder for a continuous period of three yea

 

(v) “Designated authority” means the Registrar of Companies having jurisdiction over the registered office of the company.

 

  1. Applicability: – This scheme is applicable to all defaulting companies (other than the companies which have been stuck off/whose names have been removed from the register of companies under section 248(5) of the Act). A defaulting company is permitted to file its overdue documents which were due for filing till 30.06.2017 in accordance with the provisions of this Scheme.

 

  1. Procedure to be followed for the purposes of the scheme:– (1) In the case of defaulting companies whose names have not been removed from register of companies,-

 

(i) The DINs of the disqualified directors de-activated at present shall be temporarily activated during the validity of the scheme to enable them to file the overdue documents.

 

(ii) The defaulting company shall file the overdue documents in the respective prescribed eForms paying the statutory filing fee and additional fee payable as per section 403 of the Act read with Companies (Registration Offices and fee) Rules, 2014 for filing these overdue documents.

 

(iii) The defaulting company after filing documents under this scheme, shall seek condonation of delay by filing form e-CODS 2018 attached to this scheme along with a fee of 30,000/- (Rs. Thirty Thousand only) as prescribed under the Companies (Registration Offices and Fee) Rules, 2014 well before the last date of the scheme.

 

(iv) The DINs of the Directors associated with the defaulting companies that have not filed their overdue documents and the eform CODS, and these are not taken on record in the MCA21 registry and are still found to be disqualified on the conclusion of the scheme in terms of section 164(2)(a) r/w 167(1)(a) of the Act shall be liable to be deactivated on expiry of the scheme period.

 

(2) In the event of defaulting companies whose names have been removed from the register of companies under section 248 of the Act and which have filed applications for revival under section 252 of the Act up to the date of this scheme, the Director’s DIN shall be re-activated only NCLT order of revival subject to the company having filing of all overdue documents.

 

  1. Scheme not to apply for certain documents – This scheme shall not apply to the filing of documents other than the following overdue documents:

(i) Form Number 20B/MGT-7- Form for filing Annual return by a company having share capital.

(ii) Form 21A/MGT-7- Particulars of Annual return for the company not having share capital.

(iii) Form 23AC, 23ACA, 23AC-XBRL, 23ACA-XBRL, AOC-4, AOC-4(CFS), AOC (XBRL)    and     AOC-4(non-XBRL)   –     Forms     for     filing     Balance Sheet/Financial Statement and profit and loss account.

(iv) Form 66-  Form  for  submission  of  Compliance  Certificate  with  the Registrar.

(v) Form 23B/ADT-1- Form for intimation for Appointment of Auditors.

 

  1. The Registrar concerned shall withdraw the prosecution(s) pending if any before the concerned Court(s) for all documents filed under the scheme. However, this scheme is without prejudice to action under section 167(2) of the Act or civil and criminal liabilities, if any, of such disqualified directors during the period they remained disqualified.

 

  1. At the conclusion of the Scheme, the Registrar shall take all necessary actions under the Companies Act, 1956/ 2013 against the companies who have not availed themselves of this Scheme and continue to be in default in filing the overdue documents

 

Yours faithfully,

 

(KMS. Narayanan)

 

Assistant Director (Policy)

MCA-CODs-2018.

GST return filings for October rise 11% to 4.4 million

Around 56% of the registered taxpayers have filed their GSTR-3B returns for October by 20 November, says GSTN

Over 3.9 million assessees filed the summary return for September and over 2.8 million for August.

Taxpayer compliance under the goods and services tax (GST) system is steadily improving with 4.4 million assessees filing summary of the transactions made in October, an improvement of 11% from the filings reported for the previous month, said an official statement from GSTN, the company that processes tax returns.

The statement said the number of taxpayers filing their GSTR 3B returns showed a “marked improvement” with the highest number of assessees filing returns for October till 20th November 2017.

Around 56% of the registered taxpayers have filed their GSTR-3B returns for October by 20 November, it said. The “steady increase” in filings is encouraging, the statement said further, citing chairman Prakash Kumar.

“The trend of taxpayers filing their returns on the last day continues though. Taxpayers are urged to file their returns early to avoid last minute hassles” Kumar said.

Over 3.9 million assessees filed the summary return for September and over 2.8 million for August.

Close to 1.5 million taxpayers filed their returns on 20 November, the highest number of filings in a day.

Punjab topped the list of states in compliance. About 73% of taxpayers in Punjab filed their GSTR 3B returns for October by the deadline.

Federal indirect tax body, the GST Council, has taken a series of steps including deadline relaxations, waiver of late fee, suspension of invoice matching and simplification of forms to encourage voluntary compliance under the new indirect tax regime.

 

Source: Live Mint

GST returns filing: Tax experts doubt system’s accuracy; only a quarter of taxpayers meet October 31 deadline

Increasing the fear of an unravelling of the exercise of invoices-matching, which is crucial to realising the presumed merits of the goods and services tax (GST), like reduction of tax evasion and cascades, three-fourths of the 60 lakh eligible taxpayers haven’t completed the formalities of filing.

Increasing the fear of an unravelling of the exercise of invoices-matching, which is crucial to realising the presumed merits of the goods and services tax (GST), like reduction of tax evasion and cascades, three-fourths of the 60 lakh eligible taxpayers haven’t completed the formalities of filing both the inward and outward supplies-based returns for July till a day before the October 31 deadline. This has forced the government to give another window till November-end “to facilitate about 30.81 lakh taxpayers” to file details of inward supplies (GSTR-2). The triplicate comprehensive returns for July, the first month since GST’s launch, were originally required to be filed in the subsequent month itself, but due to the GST Network’s technical glitches and low levels of compliance, the deadlines have been extended multiple times. The schedule for filing these returns for August onwards has not even been announced yet, as this was to follow from the July-cycle learning. While invoice-matching is getting unduly delayed, piling up a huge job for the taxmen, the consequent blockage of input tax credits is bound to hit the working capital for large sections of the industry.

Since the launch of GST, small and medium enterprises have faced cash crunch, while exporters have got the refunds of July and August taxes only recently. Of course, the government has allowed industries with turnover up to Rs 1.5 crore to file the detailed returns on a quarterly basis while assuring them of prompt release of input tax credits claimed via monthly interim returns, but the deferment of invoices-matching would mean large-scale adjustments of the tax and ITC figures later. The government has faced much criticism for the imperfections of the GST it launched (multiple rates, high peak rates, exclusion of real estate and five petro- leum products etc). Also, since the GST was introduced, it has had to make more compromises that besmirched the new tax further. While dozens of items saw rate changes post-July, the GST Council, on October 6, accorded virtual tax waiver for exporters till March 31, 2018, despite exemptions running contrary to the GST’s basic tenet.

Besides, units with up to Rs 1.5 crore turnover were allowed to file quarterly instead of monthly returns, a move that would allow 90% of the non-composition GST registrants to shift to the easier system of filing returns every quarter, but could make prompt invoices-matching difficult. As reported by FE on Monday, the council may allow all taxpayers to move to quarterly mode of filing returns as it meets at Guwahati on November 10. The composition scheme — that allows businesses to pay taxes as a small percentage of turnover annually — is set to be made available to units with turnover up to Rs 1.5 crore, in what could effectively exclude 90% of the taxpayers from being part of the multi-point destination-based tax chain.

GST Network, which is the IT backbone of GST, estimates that about 80 crore invoices would be uploaded on to the system every month. A tax official said that even if 2-3 crore of the invoices don’t match, it will lead to numerous disputes, which would be arduous to resolve. “Besides, tax evasion takes place when transactions are off-book which will never be captured through invoices. The government needs precise and visible enforcement to minimise tax evasion,” the official said. To begin with, GST Council should have implemented matching at the GST level where sale and purchase are matched on the basis of the unique GST registration number of each taxpayer. Invoice matching should ideally have been brought in a few months later after the system stabilised. Now that some taxpayers are allowed to file returns only quarterly, the matching should also be harmonised with it and not be carried out every month.

These steps alone will make the process smoother,” Rahul Renavikar, managing director of Acuris Advisors said. Aditya Singhania, of Taxmann, said: “The matching concept is a much appreciated step for allowing input tax credit which is regulated by the GSTR 1, 2 and 3 mechanism. But with the brilliant concept, the IT platform of GST i.e. www.gst.gov.in should equally work in same wavelength for achieving the objective. Due to certain bugs and frictions, coupled with totally new forms of returns, taxpayers were unable to file the (returns) on time.” While industrialised states like Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka among others had invoice-matching systems prior to GST, although these were not granular-level matching. A Maharashtra tax official, who requested anonymity, said that matching at the level of VAT number –much simpler than invoice-level matching – had enabled identification of 80% mismatches, which enabled the tax department to take action against hawala operations.

However, some tax officials have doubted the efficacy of invoice-matching, saying this wasn’t much of a success in any country with GST-type tax. “The first two month would pose immense challenges on how to deal with invoice mismatches and the provision may eventually have to be done away with,” a revenue department officials told FE on the condition of anonymity. The tax department is also worried that about 40% of taxpayers who filed the returns for July have claimed nil-tax liability. “It is indeed a large number. If enforcement is required, we will carry it out, though not in the nature of search and seizure. We may opt for discreet inquiries and meetings with such groups of taxpayers, to find out the reasons for the trend,” revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia had told FE earlier.

–  Financial Express

Exporters can claim refund this week for GST paid in August, September

GST Network (GSTN), the company handling IT infrastructure for the indirect tax regime, has from October 10 started issuing refunds to exporters for Integrated GST (IGST).

Exporters can soon start claiming refunds for GST paid in August and September as GSTN will this week launch an online application for processing of refund, its Chief Executive Officer Prakash Kumar said today.

GST Network (GSTN), the company handling IT infrastructure for the indirect tax regime, has from October 10 started issuing refunds to exporters for Integrated GST (IGST) they paid for the month of July, after matching GSTR-3B and GSTR-1.

For August and September, while the initial return GSTR- 3B has already been filed, the final return GSTR-1 has not yet been filed.

“A separate online app for claiming Integrated GST (IGST) refunds for August and September would be made available on GSTN portal this week,” Kumar told .

GSTN has developed the app wherein exporters can save and upload their sales data which are part of GSTR-1 after filling up export details in Table 6A.

The table will be then extracted separately and after exporters digitally sign it, it would automatically go to the customs department.

The customs department will then validate the information provided in the table with the shipping bill data and also the taxes paid in GSTR-3B. The refund amount would be either credited to exporter’s bank account through ECS or a cheque would be issued.

As per data, 55.87 lakh GSTR-3B returns were filed for July, 51.37 lakh for August and over 42 lakh for September. Preliminary returns GSTR-3B for a month is filed on the 20th day of the next month after paying due taxes.

Thereafter, final returns in form GSTR-1, 2, 3 are filed by businesses giving invoice wise details of sales. The final return filing for August and September has not started yet.

Over July-August, an estimated Rs 67,000 crore has accumulated as the Integrated GST (IGST), of which only about Rs 5,000-10,000 crore will be due as refunds to exporters.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST), the amalgamation of over a dozen indirect taxes like excise duty and VAT, does not provide for any exemption, and so exporters are required to first pay Integrated-GST (IGST) on manufactured goods and claim refunds after exporting them. This had put severe liquidity crunch, particularly on aggregators or merchant exporters.

To ease their problems, the GST Council earlier this month decided a package for them that includes extending the Advance Authorisation / Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) / 100 per cent EOU (Export Oriented Unit) schemes to sourcing inputs from abroad as well as domestic suppliers till March 31, thus not requiring to pay IGST.

The government is aiming to clear pending GST refunds of exporters by November-end. The first cheque after processing of July refunds was issued on October 10.

GST: Tax department seeks details of transitional credit data

Of the total Rs 95,000 crore GST collected in July, about Rs 65,000 crore was claimed in refunds or transitional credit.

The tax department has sought explanations from banks and financial institutions, including multinationals, on transitional credit claimed by them in July under the goods and services tax (GST) regime, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners (central tax) have issued ‘information summons’ in the last seven days seeking data in five specific areas “by e-mail/hard copy”.

These include past sales tax records; summary of closing balance of tax (as of June); description of the nature of credits; details of vendor invoices prior to July 1; and details of payments made to vendors and service providers after July 1. Transitional credit refers to tax credits on sales tax, excise and valued-added tax accumulated before July 1 on pre-GST stock.

Such credit can be set off against liabilities of the July-started GST.

Taxmen suspect some companies are misusing the provision and have filed fake returns to claim high transitional credits. Of the total Rs 95,000 crore GST collected in July, about Rs 65,000 crore was claimed in refunds or transitional credit. The move comes about two weeks after tax officers questioned manufacturing companies on transitional credit claimed by them.

ET was the first to report on September 21that about 5,000 such companies had been questioned by the taxman over transitional credit claims. For now, tax officers are only scrutinising transition credit for sales tax and excise. The data obtained from the banks and financial institutions will be examined for any discrepancies.

The firms said they haven’t been given much time to provide the information. “We had received the notice few days back and haven’t been able to submit it due to the enormity of information sought,” said the finance head of a major multinational bank. “A tax officer called me today (on Friday) and asked me to submit the required documents by Saturday.”

The finance head cited the tax officer as saying the transitional credit claimed by the bank was high. “I tried to explain that transitional credit has to be viewed in the context of our monthly tax outgo. But we will be submitting the required information nevertheless by Saturday,” he said. Experts said many companies are yet to submit transitional credit details, which has to be done through the Transform.

“Since the date for filing the Tran-1 form has been extended to October 31, it would be prudent to commence any enquiries thereafter,” said MS Mani, partner, Deloitte India. “It is advisable to consider the data submitted in the Tran-1 form and then enquire into those cases where any anomalies are detected instead of subjecting the entire data submitted by erstwhile service tax payers to any form of scrutiny.”

The pressure on tax officials increased after a letter by a senior member of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) was sent on Wednesday to all tax commissioners. ET has seen the letter. “In view of the urgency of the matter kindly have the verification of transitional credit completed on priority (in respect of list of taxpayers forwarded on 11/9/2017) and a report on the same to be sent on this office not later than 15/10/2017,” the letter read. The letter also asked tax officers to submit a detailed analysis of transitional credit claims. This is expected to be submitted by November 3.

The Central Board of Excise and Customs had in September sent a list to all commissioners and joint commissioners that included state-wise details of companies, the GST number and transition credit amount. Tax officers had started calling all the companies whose transitional credit numbers seemed high to them.