MCA had taken another bold initiative in Government Process Re-engineering (GPR) and launched Simplified proforma for Incorporating Company Electronically (SPICe) e-Form.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs plans to simplify the existing processes for setting up a company, according to a public notice.
In this regard, the ministry — which is implementing the Companies Act — has sought views from the stakeholders.
The government has already centralised name reservation and incorporation services. There were more than 11.34 lakh active companies at the end of August.
Now, comments have been sought for “further simplification of processes aimed at further easing the starting of a business,” the ministry said in a public notice.
Registration of new companies is being done by way of the integrated SPICe form.
The procedures for obtaining DIN (Director Identification Number) by the proposed directors, name reservation, incorporation as well as allotment of PAN and TAN have been integrated — a move that brings down the time taken for starting a new business under the companies law.
According to the notice, DIN allotment or name reservation services can also be done independently by stakeholders “who wish to proceed with incorporation in a piecemeal manner.
Stakeholders can submit their comments to the ministry by November 5.
SPICe (Simplified Proforma for Incorporating a Company Electronically) is aimed at providing speedy incorporation related services.
Qualified accounts can be flagged on the ministry’s portal, thereby, helping regulators to keep a check on suspicious entities
The ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) says work has begun for an “early warning system” regarding shell companies.
The term is used to refer to a company without active business operations or much of assets. This by itself isn’t illegitimate but they could be used as a manoeuvre for financial operations of a suspect or illegitimate nature.
Currently, there is no way to check shell companies systemically, an official said. Chartered accountants (CAs) do come out with qualified accounts of such companies but these come in a random way on the ministry’s MCA21 portal. Qualified accounts refer to bits of information about which CAs have doubts or disagreement with the audited entity’s management.
After the hoped-for early warning system comes, qualified accounts would be flagged on the ministry’s portal, helping it and other regulators to check on such entities. “We are yet to work out the nitty gritty of this system but are on the job,” another official said.
He said this would do away with the current system of random inspections to identify such companies. The portal will have filings by CAs in such a way that regulators will be alerted, he said.
Earlier, minister of state for corporate affairs P P Chaudhary had said the government would try to use the information technology tool of artificial intelligence in this regard.
CAs told Business Standard that an early warning system by itself wouldn’t change things by much. There should also be stringent norms to make auditors more independent. One of them said it is a company’s promoters who appoint the auditor, which means the latter does not retain the independence to openly report facts. So, a CA’s appointment would need to move away from promoters.
The ministry had recently issued rules to limit the number of subsidiaries a company may have — no more than two layers. This will apply prospectively but existing companies have to disclose details of their entire list of subsidiaries to the registrar of companies within 150 days. Banks and insurance companies are excluded from this rule.
With no limit on the number of subsidiaries, regulators found it difficult to track illicit transactions.
The goods and services tax (GST) might find use in national accounts beyond the routine application of indirect taxes in converting gross value added (GVA) into gross domestic product (GDP).
“We have started an exercise to look into this. A group comprising officials of the national accounts division is examining this issue,” TC A Anant, the government’s chief statistician, told Business Standard.
The GST, he noted, was more than a tax, since assessees file returns and describe activities on which the tax is levied, besides a whole bunch of other information. “In B2B (business-to-business) transactions, we can track the value chain. The national accounts committee is looking at it. It is at least worth probing,” Anant said. The group will check if there are legal or technical hurdles in the way. In the old taxation system as well, such filings were done in the case of value-added tax, central excise duty and service tax, but those were in separate databases. So, the system’s ability to use the data was somewhat limited.
“We had in the past conducted discussions to see if we could get more mileage from these databases. However, these remained at discussion level and not converted into outcomes,” Anant said.
There were many reasons for this. First, the process of computerisation of tax filings started around 2005-06, the service tax bit earlier and central excise a bit later. It got standardised around 2010-11.
“We started looking at it when we were doing preparatory work for base revision. Partly because of that fragmented nature, we were unable to get any mileage from it. By 2015, it became clearer that these indirect taxes would be taken over by the GST. Now, we have greater advantage as the GST covers both goods and services.”
So far as the usual use of the GST for converting GVA into GDP is concerned, Anant said it was simply a question of getting the data on the GST collection and verify how much of it is attributable to the Centre and how much to state collection. With the latter, there will be an additional bit of information, on how much was collected by specific states and the share they got from the Centre.
“This you may call a routine part of the GST database. For us, numbers are important because we use these — overall tax collections in national accounts and, similarly, specific state figures for its GSDP,” he said. Much of indirect taxes, net of subsidies, are used for converting GVA into GDP, both at current prices and at constant prices. Earlier, a panel headed by former NITI Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya had suggested using the data on the GST Network (GSTN), the levy’s information technology backbone, to assess the job market. It recommended using registration and enrolment on the GSTN as a sample for enterprise survey, to be conducted annually. So far, a little over nine million assessees have registered on the GSTN. High-frequency data, monthly or quarterly, might be conducted on the subset of the GSTN. The panel also suggested making the GSTN the universal establishment number and the income taxbased permanent account number embedded with the GSTN the universal enterprise number.
“IN B2B TRANSACTIONS, WE CAN TRACK THE VALUE CHAIN. THE NATIONAL ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE IS LOOKING AT IT. IT IS AT LEAST WORTH PROBING” TC A Anant Chief statistician
The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) is prepared on the basis of country-level data covering 12 categories or pillars of competitiveness.
India has been ranked as the 40th most competitive economy — slipping one place from last year’s ranking — on the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness index, which is topped by Switzerland.
On the list of 137 economies, Switzerland is followed by the US and Singapore in second and third places, respectively.
In the latest Global Competitiveness Report released today, India has slipped from the 39th position to 40th while neighbouring China is ranked at 27th.
“India stabilises this year after its big leap forward of the previous two years,” the report said, adding that the score has improved across most pillars of competitiveness. These include infrastructure (66th rank), higher education and training (75) and technological readiness (107), reflecting recent public investments in these areas, it added.
According to the report, India’s performance also improved in ICT (information and communications technologies) indicators, particularly Internet bandwidth per user, mobile phone and broadband subscriptions, and Internet access in schools.
However, the WEF said the private sector still considers corruption to be the most problematic factor for doing business in India.
“A big concern for India is the disconnect between its innovative strength (29) and its technological readiness (up 3 to 107): as long as this gap remains large, India will not be able to fully leverage its technological strengths across the wider economy,” it noted.
Among the BRICS, China and Russia (38) are placed above India.South Africa and Brazil are placed at 61st and 80th spots, respectively.
In South Asia, India has garnered the highest ranking, followed by Bhutan (85th rank), Sri Lanka (85), Nepal (88), Bangladesh (99) and Pakistan (115).
“Improving ICT infrastructure and use remain among the biggest challenges for the region: in the past decade, technological readiness stagnated the most in South Asia,” WEF said.
Other countries in the top 10 are the Netherlands (4th rank), Germany (5), Hong Kong SAR (6), Sweden (7), United Kingdom (8), Japan (9) and Finland (10).
The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) is prepared on the basis of country-level data covering 12 categories or pillars of competitiveness.
Institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation are the 12 pillars.
According to WEF’s Executive Opinion Survey 2017, corruption is the most problematic factor for doing business in India.
The second biggest bottleneck is ‘access to financing’, followed by ‘tax rates’, ‘inadequate supply of infrastructure’, ‘poor work ethics in national labour force’ and ‘inadequately educated work force’, among others.
The survey findings are mentioned in the report.
“Countries preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and simultaneously strengthening their political, economic and social systems will be the winners in the competitive race of the future,” WEF founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab said.
The govt has struck off more than 200,000 firms that have not complied with the provision of the law from the list maintained by the RoC and frozen their bank accounts to check any siphoning off of funds.
The corporate affairs ministry has disqualified another 200,000 directors for holding posts in defaulting companies that have not filed their financial returns for the last three years or more, taking the total number to over 300,000, while cancelling the registration of another 10,000 companies.
These directors won’t be able to hold board seats in other companies as well and may have to resign soon from them, potentially impacting other firms as well.
While the current law does not provide for any appeal, the government is thinking of exercising “the review power to take any such plea into consideration,” PP Chaudhary, minister of state for corporate affairs, told ET. “By operation of law, these directors are disqualified but we have to see under what provision of law we can examine this. If we need to frame a rule we will do it.”
According to Section 167 of the Companies Act, a director is disqualified automatically from all other posts of director once barred under Section 164, said Chaudhary, a lawyer by profession.
The government has struck off more than 200,000 firms that have not complied with the provision of the law from the list maintained by the Registrar of Companies and frozen their bank accounts to check any siphoning off of funds.
“This exercise is part of demonetisation. No one had the guts to stop all this till now. It will prove a catalyst for the Indian economy,” said the minister of state, who took over this responsibility after the recent reshuffle. He said the money trail will be traced after data mining of these companies.
The government will prioritise those cases where there is evidence of a large movement of cash. He rejected the criticism that the action was retrospective in nature.
“Law has not been retrospective. Companies had two years to file returns… there was healing time,” the minister of state said. So far the shell firm chase has been limited to defaulting firms that have not filed their financial returns for the last three years or more but the government will soon go after compliant firms as well to check their holding companies structures and fund flows.
Chaudhary said the intent is to restore trust in the corporate structure and also improve ease of doing business in the country.
“We do not want to create any terror. Trust in the corporate structure is gone and we want to increase the investor confidence, not interfere in the corporate structure,” Chaudhary said.The government wants to promote ease of doing business to ensure investors that their money is safe in India, he added.
“This exercise has been triggered due to governance. We have shown scale and speed in an unparalleled way in the way we have acted against these companies and directors,” Chaudhary said.
Last week, the government made public the names of 55,000 directors who were disqualified under Section 164 (2) (A) of the Companies Act. The list included the names of prominent politicians including former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah and Malayalam filmstar Mohanlal among others.While the government will not impose any penalty on the directors of government-owned companies that figured in the list of defaulters, those in private firms will have to resign from other board seats and won’t be eligible for reappointment for up to five years.
The corporate affairs ministry will also look into these companies to identify shell companies to see if they have been used for money laundering or any other illegal activity. “We need to find who the shell company’s real beneficiary is… It could be in the name of the cook or a driver. We are taking stock of the money in these companies pre and post demonetisation,” Chaudhary said.
While spotting defaulting companies is an ongoing process, Chaudhary said that, using artificial intelligence, the government will sift out the shell companies from among those that are compliant with regulations and also create an early warning system. “The system will trigger alerts every time we see unusual activity taking place in a company. It will also help us find out the beneficial owner of the shell companies,” he said.
Jim Kim said Japan, Europe and the US along with India were growing and there was a levelling-out in developing countries.
India has been growing “pretty robustly”, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has said as he predicted a strong global growth this year.
Speaking at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum meeting here on Wednesday, Kim also called for more cooperation among the multilateral system, private sector and the governments to take advantage of the current win-win situation.
“That dormant capital will earn a higher return, where developing countries will have access to much more capital for the infrastructure needs, even for investing in health and education, investing in resilience to climate change and other factors,” Kim said.
He said Japan, Europe and the US along with India were growing and there was a levelling-out in developing countries.
“A country like India is growing, has been growing pretty robustly. We think, Japan is growing. Europe is growing in a much more healthy way. The United States continues to grow. There is a levelling-out in developing countries,” he said, adding that the growth will be more robust this year.
In June, the World Bank predicted a 7.2 per cent growth rate for India this year against 6.8 per cent growth in 2016. India remains the fastest growing major economy in the world, the World Bank officials had said.
“It used to be that commodity importers were doing much better than commodity exporters. But that’s levelling out. So the growth is relatively more evenly distributed,” Kim said.
He said in terms of indebtedness, the bank was watching very carefully the debt-to-GDP ratios of every single country.
“In Africa, the debt-to-GDP ratios are still very manageable…We would not be moving toward providing more financing for countries if we thought there was a real problem with over indebtedness in the countries. Because we follow this very closely, along with the IMF,” he said.
“We think that there are tremendous opportunities for investment. But sometimes, purely based on perception, investors in sovereign wealth funds – I’ve heard them say, Africa is risky. Right, as if Africa was a single country.
Africa’s not a single country and the risk profiles from country to country have enormous differences,” he said.
GST regime allows tax credit on stock purchased during the previous tax regime
The government on Friday said only Rs 12,000 crore of the Rs 65,000 crore of input tax credit claimed by assessees for the pre-GST stocks were valid.
The governments, both the Centre and states, had got Rs 95,000 crore of revenues from the goods and services tax (GST) for July, the first month of the indirect taxation system. But after claims of Rs 65,000 crore were made for refunds of taxes paid on stocks lying with businesses as of June 30, the government was startled, as that would have meant just Rs 30,000 crore of revenues from GST, which would be shared between the Centre and the states. The finance ministry said Rs 95,000 crore was the amount actually paid in cash, other than availing credit.
The Press Trust of India reported the government has estimated valid transitional credit claims of taxpayers in July were just Rs 12,000 crore and not Rs 65,000 crore, as previously claimed. This would give the government a short in the arm in its efforts to mop-up additional resources to perk up a subdued economy.
The GST regime allows tax credit on stock purchased during the previous tax regime. This facility is available only up to six months from the date of the GST roll-out. Even these claims could be adjusted in future months, a statement by the finance ministry suggested.
An expert explained that some of the credit available in earlier taxes would be blocked in the new regime. For instance, he said, the credit for taxes paid on purchasing vehicles were not available for businesses under the new tax unless it was a dealership or business of carrying passengers. Also, credits claimed might be under litigation and, therefore, it might not be available to the assessee to carry forward or for utilisation.
Earlier in the day, the finance ministry had issued a statement to allay concerns about high transitional credit claims, saying the Centre’s revenue kitty would not go down because of these claims. It said claims worth Rs 65,000 crore does not mean that businesses would have used all of this for payment of their output tax liability for July. In other words, the credit, which now stands reduced to Rs 12,000 crore could be utilised for future tax liability.
On how the government would stagger the adjustment, Abhishek Rastogi of Khaitan & Co cited the example of banking services. In the earlier regime, banks had to pay a centralised service tax. Under GST, they will pay state-wise tax as well. So adjusting credit for pre-GST stocks may take some time as tax liability in one centre, which used to pay earlier taxes, might not be as huge this time.
The ministry also said Rs 65,000-crore transition credit claimed was “not incredibly high” as Rs 1.27 lakh crore of credit of central excise and service tax was lying as closing balance as of June 30, 2017.
The statement said some assessees would have committed a mistake in filing the form TRAN-1 and hence, the government will allow facility of revision of TRAN-1 by the middle of October.
The GST Council has already extended by a month the date for filing TRAN-1 form till October 31.
Archit Gupta, CEO of ClearTax said while the move to extend the deadline is a good step, there would be confusion to reconcile the credit available in the old regime with the one in the GST system.
He said this would do away with the current system of random inspections to identify such companies. The portal will have filings by CAs in such a way that regulators will be alerted, he said.
