In a major incentive, startups can now issue shares to investors at higher than fair value without worrying about tax consequences.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has notified the much awaited tax exemption on investments above fair market rate for startups.
“The exemption provided to startups from the ‘rigour’ of section 56(2)(viib) of Income Tax Act has been long awaited,” Amit Maheshwari, Partner Ashok Maheshwary and Associates LLP, said.
The effect of the CBDT’s notification is that in case a startup gets investment from resident angel investors, family offices or funds which were not registered as venture capital funds, it will not be taxed even if the investment is made in excess to the fair value.
“It has been a long standing industry demand to abolish this Angel tax,” Maheshwari said.
A startup is a company in which the public are not “substantially interested” and conforms to certain conditions as prescribed by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in February this year.
Under Indian tax law, if an Indian company receives share subscription amount from an Indian resident which exceeds the fair value of shares, then the excess amount is taxed as income of the Indian company, said Rajesh H Gandhi, Partner, Deloitte Haskins and Sells LLP.
“The notification now exempts startups from this rigorous provision. This is a welcome relaxation and would ensure that startups can issue shares to investors at higher than fair value without worrying about any tax consequences,” Gandhi said.
A similar exemption already exists for Venture Capital Funds (VCFs).
Maheshwari said this Angel tax still poses threat to earlier investments which could be perceived as being overvalued in light of the declining valuations globally and in India.
Last week, the DIPP has launched a portal and mobile app through which startups can gather all latest updates on various notifications, circulars issued by various departments and different funding agencies.
In January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had unveiled a slew of incentives to boost startup businesses, offering them a tax holiday and inspector raj-free regime for three years, capital gains tax exemption and Rs 10,000 crore corpus to fund them.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at the first Rajasva Gyan Sangam in New Delhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitched for nearly doubling of tax base to 10 crore assesses while addressing tax officers in the first ever Rajasva Gyan Sangam that kick-started on Thursday.
Modi outlined a five-point charter for tax administrators – RAPID, which stands for Revenue, Accountability, Probity, Information and Digitisation to reform the taxation system in the country.
MODI’S FOUR COMMANDMENTS FOR TAX DEPARTMENT:
Increase tax base to 100 million people from 54.3 million now
Focus on RAPID: Revenue, Accountability, Probity, Information and Digitisation
Ensure simplification and go for total digitisation
Turn Gyan Sangam into a Karma Sangam, so ideas generated here lead to concrete action on the ground
In an hour-long interaction, he urged officers to build a ‘bridge of confidence’ between tax payers and tax officials, stressing on incorporating a sense of trust in the system so that they pay taxes without fear or harassment.
“While there should be respect for the rule of law among all citizens, and even fear of the long arm of the law for those who evade taxes, people should not fear tax administrators,” Modi said in his interaction with tax officers.
Citing the example of the “Give it up” initiative for voluntarily giving up gas subsidy, he said that the tax base too could be increased significantly, provided the tax administrators can demonstrate the leadership to bring about a change.
This is for the first time that the two boards — Central Board of Direct Taxes and Central Board of Excise and Customs — came together for the joint conference. Earlier they held separate conferences with the Finance Minister as the chief guest.
Modi said that tax officials should act like “mentors of taxpayers” and not treat them as “tax evaders”.
“People of India are inherently honest. If you build trust then people will pay taxes and you will be able to achieve the target,” Modi said.
The conclave will deliberate on a host of issues related to taxpayer services and effective implementation of fiscal laws and government policies with discussions around government’s financial inclusion initiatives, ensuring a transparent tax regime for businesses and foreign investors besides issues and challenges being faced by the two tax departments.
Minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha in a briefing after the first session said, “Prime Minister laid out certain goals and objectives for the officials to increase the tax base to 10 crore from 5.43 crore at present.”
Sinha said of the 25 crore households in the country, 15 crore are agriculturalists and hence the remaining 10 crore should be under the tax net.
Modi in his speech said 92% of tax department revenue comes from TDS, advance tax and self assessment tax, while the remaining 8% comes after scrutiny.
He said if 42,000 officials of CBDT are engaged for ensuring direct tax revenue, then the tax net should increase further.
Stating that the country is filled with “aspirational people”, Modi urged the taxmen to take steps so that people find it easier to pay taxes here.
Prime minister emphasized that people in India mostly pay taxes and the number of people who want to evade it is less.
“People don’t have problem in paying tax. So there is no question of tax evasion. The issue is how much cooperative are we in dealing with people. He said you should behave like mentors with the people rather than evader… If you become taxpayer friendly, then taxes will automatically come to you,” Modi said.
During the brainstorming session, he pressed officers to move towards digitisation besides making tax administration better and efficient.
The two-day Gyan Sangam is being attended by close to 250 officers of the rank of Principal Chief Commissioners, Chief Commissioners and Principal Commissioners from CBDT and 170 from the CBEC.
During the interaction, Modi said if someone Googles ‘how to pay taxes in India’, there will be seven crore results. If the question of ‘how not to pay taxes in India’ is put to Google, there would be 12 crore feeds.
The tax officials in their interaction with the prime minister gave a host of suggestions, which included to setting up of National Tax Facilitation Act to regulate basic norms of tax collection.
Ideas and views were expressed on diverse subjects such as digitization, voluntary tax compliance, facilitation for taxpayers, increasing the tax base, upgradation of digital and physical infrastructure for tax administrators etc.
Modi urged officers to turn the Gyan Sangam into a Karma Sangam, so that the ideas generated from this conference lead to concrete action on the ground.
As many as 15 officers from the CBDT and CBEC posed their questions to Prime Minister on various issues being faced by them in their regular work.
The issues included dilemma over whether officials should act as law enforcement agency or taxpayer friendly agency while collecting due taxes from people.
They also raised the issue of voluntary tax compliance, increasing tax base, upgradation of digital and physical infrastructure for tax administrators.
The income-tax returns filing season is fast approaching with the initial deadline being July 31.
The income-tax returns filing season is fast approaching with the initial deadline being July 31. You must be among those preparing to file your returns. But most tax assessees who are required to e-file their returns keep deferring till the last moment.
However, even if you are procrastinating, you need to be prepared with all the details that you need to provide in your tax returns. And for that you need a lot of documents to be with you. It may not easy to source these documents at the last moment since some have to obtained from your office, some come by mail and others need to be downloaded. And even if you have all of documents with you, you need to have them filed in a file that is easy to locate.
So what are these documents that you need to keep handy at the time of filing? FeMoney asked tax expert Sudhir Kaushik, Co-founder and CFO, Taxspanner.com on documents that are a must in hand. “Keeping documents like Form 16, Form 26AS and home or education loan certificates for obtaining deductions would ensure that your tax filing is hassle-free and complete,” Kaushik said.
Here are a list of documents that Kaushik says one should be ready with while filing tax returns:
Form-16 and Form-16A
Form-16 is the most basic source of information about the income earned and the tax deducted from your salary during the year. In case you have worked for more than one employer during the financial year 2015-16 then you must collect your Form 16 from all of them. Form 16-A form is also called a Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) certificate and is issued by banks for interest income, capital gains of NRIs, etc. If you have rental income and your landlord has deducted TDS on rent then you should collect Form-16A from the landlord too. Similarly, if you have any commission or professional income, TDS certificate for the same should also be collected.
Form-26AS
Your income from all sources, tax deductions and any high-value transaction(s) are reported in this form. I-T department sends notices if the ITR filed by the taxpayer does not match with the information available in Form-26AS. You should get your Form 26AS and match details with your ITR before filing it. If there is some mismatch, you should fix those errors and then file your return. You can download Form-26AS from your net banking account, directly from income-tax department’s website.
Bank statements from all bank accounts
You should verify that all the bank transactions carried out during the financial year with respect to income earned, investments made, expenses etc. have been declared in the appropriate sections of your return. This would show dividend income or gifts received above Rs 50,000 on which tax needs to be paid.
Home/education loan interest certificates
If you have taken any home/education loan then collect their interest certificate from the lender to claim the right deduction.
Investment proofs not submitted to employer
It is possible that some of the investments made by you during the financial year have not been included in the Form-16 issued to you. For example, if you invested in tax-saving tools such as life insurance, Public Provident Fund after proof submission deadline set by your employer, proofs of these investments would not have been submitted to your employer. For such investments, you need to have the proofs for reference while preparing your return.
Share/mutual fund transaction statements
These are required to enter details like sale date, purchase date, quantity and amount for computing capital gains/loss.
Tax payment challan(s)
If you have paid advance tax and/or self assessment tax then you need to enter the details of the same in your return for accurate computation of tax liability.
The Income Tax department has launched an ATM-based validation system for filing e-ITRs by taxpayers as part of its measure to enhance the paperless regime of filing the annual IT returns.
“Now, Electronic Verification Code (EVC) can be generated by pre-validating your Automated Teller Machine (ATM) provided by the bank where a taxpayer has an account. While SBI has activated the facility beginning yesterday, other banks will follow soon,” a senior IT official said.
Last month, the department had launched the bank account based validation facility in this regard for those who have not availed internet banking facility. The new facility is available on the official e-filing portal of the department – http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/ and will work by using the One Time Password verification system as activated by the department last year by using the Aadhaar number.
A recent clarification by the government has created a stir among some multinationals which are concerned that their Indian entities might be taxed even in case of a global merger and acquisition with another global company.
More so, the worry is in case of multinationals that hold intangible assets in India, either through research and development centres, or are engaged in businesses where it is tough to value assets.
This is mainly because tax component, if at all, would be decided on valuation of the Indian entity, and whether valuation (Indian entity) accounts for more than half the holding entity outside India. This comes in the wake of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) announcing rules for determining fair market value in case of indirect transfer of shares of an Indian entity. Rules specify a method for determination of “fair market value” of foreign target company shares and Indian company shares. In case of an indirect transfer of shares or transaction, if the value of Indian assets is more than 50% of the foreign target company, this could lead to taxation in India.
So if an US-headquartered company invests in India through a Mauritius company and at any point in time there’s a change in ownership, the tax could be applied. The tax would be triggered in India if the ownership of the Mauritius company is changed, and if more than 50% of the total assets of this company (Mauritius company) are in India.
“If a multinational has a presence in India through an intermediate holding vehicle in a third country, and if there is an M&A deal at the intermediate holding entity level, the Indian entity can attract taxation in India,” said Amit Singhania, Partner at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas.
“While the 50% rule applies, valuing the Indian assets, particularly the right of management or control in an unlisted Indian company would be challenging,” Singhania said.
Many multinationals are now rushing to their Indian tax consultants to find out which transactions could attract tax here. “Many multinationals that have a presence in India through Mauritius could face some tax in India even if there is an offshore M&A deal, especially where the seller is based in a country whose treaty does not exempt capital gains tax in India,” said Rajesh H Gandhi, partner, tax, Deloitte Haskins and Sells.
“However, more importantly, it could be challenging to identify and value some of the assets and determine the place where they are situated. This would be more relevant for assets like human resources, contractual rights and intangibles such as mobile applications, results of R&D or patents developed in India but registered elsewhere,” said Gandhi.
Industry trackers say that in case of an M&A at an international level, the shares of holding companies are transferred or merged, which is where the problem lies. Many experts also point out that information and documentation required to ascertain the valuation of Indian as well as an intermediary is not just complicated but tough to come by in many cases.
“If so, income tax would assume the Indian entity’s valuation is more than 50% of the holding entity,” said a consultant currently advising such a client. Experts point out that patents held by the Indian company, and some other assets too have to be valued. Not only valuing these intangible assets could have different views, in some cases, these patents or other intangible assets are developed in India but sit on the balance sheet of other group companies outside India.
The Income Tax department, beginning this financial year, has decided to ‘name and shame’ all category of taxpayers who have a default of Rs one crore and above.
The department has begun publishing the names of tax defaulters in leading national dailies since last year and has named 67 such defaulters from across the country till now with their vital details like addresses, contacts, PAN card number and shareholders in case of companies.
The earlier exercise was restricted to people with huge defaults to the tune of about Rs 20-30 crore but the new measure will bring to the fore those names who have defaulted a tax of Rs 1 crore or more. “It has been decided to ‘name and shame’ all category of taxpayers including personal and corporate taxpayers who have a default of Rs 1 crore and above by March, 31 which is the end of 2016-17 financial year.
The Income Tax department has launched a special electronic grievance redressal system called ‘e-nivaran’ in order to fast track taxpayer grievances and ensure early resolution of their complaints.
A separate and dedicated window for grievance redressal has been launched recently in the Income Tax Business Application (ITBA), the new smart electronic platform for the regular operations of the department.
The facility is called ‘e-nivaran’ (electronic solution) and acts to integrate all online and physical complaints gathered by the department at this platform which will be monitored by the Assessing Officer of the case upto the supervisory officers in a paperless environment.
The facility is called ‘e-nivaran’ (electronic solution) and acts to integrate all online and physical complaints gathered by the department at this platform which will be monitored by the Assessing Officer of the case up to the supervisory officers in a paperless environment.
“The new system is called unified grievance management system and is acronymed ‘e-nivaran’. The system not only records the origin of the grievance on the electronic platform it works on, but it also keeps tracking it till it reaches its logical conclusion for final resolution,” a senior IT official said.
The e-portal will also ensure that grievances related to any section or domain of the tax department are transferred quickly to the department concerned like that of refunds issue or any other IT matter concerning an assessee.
The decision to launch ‘e-nivaran’, the official said, was taken in view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi few months back asking the IT department to pull up its socks and ensure that taxpayers grievances are resolved in the shortest possible time.
Modi had also asked all such departments which have a public interface to reduce this time to one month from the existing two months time.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the policy-making body of the department, has recently also created a new structure in the department to deal with these issues called the Taxpayer Services unit.
Allotting high priority to this issue, the CBDT had also brought a new mechanism where top officers of the department have been allotted a specific quota of complaints to monitor and track, from their origin to successful resolution.
In a major incentive, startups can now issue shares to investors at higher than fair value without worrying about tax consequences.
The department has begun publishing the names of tax defaulters in leading national dailies since last year and has named 67 such defaulters from across the country till now with their vital details like addresses, contacts, PAN card number and shareholders in case of companies.
The earlier exercise was restricted to people with huge defaults to the tune of about Rs 20-30 crore but the new measure will bring to the fore those names who have defaulted a tax of Rs 1 crore or more. “It has been decided to ‘name and shame’ all category of taxpayers including personal and corporate taxpayers who have a default of Rs 1 crore and above by March, 31 which is the end of 2016-17 financial year.
Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/business/economy/it-dept-to-name-and-shame-crorepati-defaulters-this-fiscal-2817347/#sthash.jCduzRT8.dpuf