Banks’ auditors under lens: RBI seeks explanation on differences in write-downs

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According to RBI data, PSU banks in FY17 have written off Rs 81,683 crore against Rs 2.49 lakh crore in the past five years.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has questioned scores of auditors at 27 public sector banks on the process and logic they had used to compute and report write-downs at the lenders, two people close to the development told ET.

The RBI has sought written explanation on differences in the write-down assessments by its own inspectors and those certified by the auditors. A write-down is a reduction in the estimated and nominal value of an asset, and is charged off as a loss to the profit and loss account for the relevant period. In some cases, the RBI has also questioned the provisioning methodology and non-performing asset (NPA) figures arrived at by the auditors at a few public sector banks, sources told ET.

The banking regulator is examining whether auditors at these state-run lenders followed RBI guidelines on write-downs, provisioning and NPAs. “This is part of RBI’s annual assessment. Auditors will have to explain how they provisioned for NPA and how they calculated write-downs,” said a person aware of the matter.

The write-downs, NPA and provisioning figures arrived at by the auditors and RBI inspectors differ by up to 10%.

WRITE-DOWNS & PROVISIONING
According to RBI data, PSU banks in FY17 have written off Rs 81,683 crore against Rs 2.49 lakh crore in the past five years. In a few cases, the audit reports of some of these lenders do not reflect these write-downs, said one of the persons cited above. Most banks do not separately report write-downs in their accounts, combining them often with quarterly provisioning.

Most Indian public sector banks use more than one auditor due to the enormous size of their balance sheets. Most auditors are mid-to-small Indian firms that audit several branches. The 27 public sector banks collectively employ 115 auditors, according to data analysed by the ET Intelligence Group.

According to the people in the know, auditors at State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Allahabad Bank and Bank of India (BoI) were sent the show-cause notices about two weeks ago.

ET’s detailed email queries to the regulator and the affected lenders – SBI, PNB, BoB, IDBI, Indian Overseas Bank, Canara Bank, BoI, Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) and Allahabad Bank – did not elicit any response.

REGULATOR HAS PRIVILEGED ACCESS’
According to a major bank’s auditor who did not wish to be identified, the differences are not unexpected. “The RBI has access to information an auditor may not. Like, if a loan in bank X has gone toxic, the auditor of bank Y may not know, but the RBI would,” he said. He added that there is a time lapse between auditors preparing an account and the RBI conducting inspections. “What you must look at is the impact on the P&L of a bank due to divergence. In most cases, that is not much,” he said.

To be sure, there may have been ‘technical’ errors in interpreting the writedown rules, resulting in the differences. “There is a direct impact of the new accounting standards on the way write-downs are arrived at,” said a senior executive at a top audit firm. “Under the old accounting system, the rules around write-downs were not as precise, and there is a possibility that some auditors may have ignored this.”

Source: Economic Times

Economic Survey 2016-17: Arvind Subramanian says 5.4 lakh new tax payers added post demonetisation, calls GST astonishing feat

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Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian while speaking at the Economic Survey 2016-17 said that there has been a regime shift in terms of macroeconomic stability since demonetisation.

Economic Survey 2016-17: Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian while speaking at the Economic Survey 2016-17 said that there has been a regime shift in terms of macroeconomic stability since demonetisation.

He revealed that about 5.4 lakh new tax payers have been added since Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes invalid on November 8, 2016. “5.4 lakh new tax payers added in post-demonetisation period, a big number,” he was quoted as saying by ANI.

Talking more about the impact of demonetisation on the Indian economy, Subramanian said the long term effect is that there has been a 20% reduction in cash in the economy.

He added that so far the government has overachieved its targets on inflation and it will soon be within target. “Substantially overachieved on checking inflation; by the end of March, inflation will be well within the target. Long term effect of demonetisation has been a 20% reduction in cash in economy”, the CEA added.

Talking about the boom to mobile banking, Subramanian said both level and pace of digital payments have been different since demonetisation.

While speaking about the historic Goods and Service Tax which was implemented last month, Subramanian said it is an astonishing feat of administration, politics and technology.

He said farm loans are going to have a deflationary, not inflationary effect if states’ borrowing limit is not raised. The Chief Economic Adviser further added that the balance of risks to growth has shifted to the downside.

His comments came in the backdrop of protests being held by farmers across the country. He said a structural decline in inflation rates and outlook has created scope for lower interest rates and monetary policy.

Source: Financial Express

 

10 days to go; GSTN set for last minute rush on slow pace of returns filing

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With barely 10 days left for goods and services tax (GST) assessees to file summarised interim returns, the GST Network (GSTN), the IT back end for the indirect tax regime, hasn’t yet started witnessing high-frequency traffic, indicating a possible last-minute rush. Till August 5, nearly 87 lakh taxpayers had registered on the GSTN portal as taxpayers under GST.

With barely 10 days left for goods and services tax (GST) assessees to file summarised interim returns, the GST Network (GSTN), the IT back end for the indirect tax regime, hasn’t yet started witnessing high-frequency traffic, indicating a possible last-minute rush. “We have just 16,000 returns till August 8 while there are 87 lakh businesses registered with us,” GSTN chairman Navin Kumar told FE on Wednesday. However, he added that the back end was equipped to handle even a last-minute rush. “Half of the people might come on the last day,” he said, attributing the low traffic on the portal so far to assessees’ behaviour pattern.

Only a little over half of the registrants on GSTN have so far completed the process by filling up part B of the registration form.

The interim return, GSTR 3B, requires taxpayers to provide a summary of outward sales, purchases, input tax credit demand and tax liability. The window for filing these returns commenced on August 5 and it will remain open till August 20. The GST Council had earlier postponed the requirement for filing full-fledged returns to September, and allowed the taxpayers to file interim return for July and August, in a bid to reduce their initial hassles.

Kumar, however, told FE that not all of the 16,000 taxpayers had completed the return filing process as many are yet to pay the tax. “The taxpayers have come to the site and saved the relevant data on the portal but not submitted it as they need to first pay the tax before submission, which hasn’t happened,” Kumar said .

He admitted that the the traffic on the portal had been slow thus far, and urged the assessees to not wait for the last day to file returns. However, he assured that the GSTN system was robust enough to handle the heavy traffic it might experience closer to the last date.

“We have designed the system keeping the possible deluge of taxpayers in the final hours as our study suggests that a very large number of taxpayers sign up on the last two days of the deadline,” Kumar said.

Additionally, businesses have the option of filing return with the help of GST suvidha providers (GSPs). GSTN has authorised 34 such firms to upload data onto the portal on behalf of taxpayers. However, only 18 such GSPs have been able to connect to the GSTN servers for filing the interim returns.

“I have been urging them to speed up their work,” Kumar said about GSPs that are yet to go live.

Till August 5, nearly 87 lakh taxpayers had registered on the GSTN portal as taxpayers under GST. Of this, nearly 71 lakh businesses have migrated from earlier VAT or central excise or service tax regime while 16 lakh new taxpayers too have registered with the portal. What could further compound the problem is the incomplete registrations submitted by the registrants. GSTN had earlier said that over 30% of the firm registered on the portal had not completed the second form. This would prevent these businesses from filing returns.

Source: Financial Express

Millions of firms not ready to file returns under GST: Kumar

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Millions of companies are still not ready to file their first returns under the new GST ahead of an 20 August deadline, says Navin Kumar. Photo: Bloomberg

Millions of companies in India are still not ready to file their first returns under the new goods and services tax (GST) ahead of an 20 August deadline, a top official told Reuters, urging them not to leave things to the eleventh hour.

Navin Kumar, chairman of the GST Network, also said barely half of the 34 service providers accredited to help firms bulk-file invoices online had received approval to go live.

Yet he gave an assurance that the huge IT back end that is designed to crunch up to 3 billion invoices a month and calculate companies’ taxes would be stable, even if there is a last-minute rush to file.

“It will not crash,” he told Reuters in an interview. “We are working on the assumption that 50% of the people will come on the last day.”

Billed as India’s biggest-ever tax reform, the GST has replaced a slew of federal and state levies. It has also cleared barriers between India’s 29 states, uniting its 1.3 billion people into a common market for the first time.

Yet the complexity of the tax — which has main rates of 5, 12, 18 and 28% and multiple exceptions — has raised concerns that companies will struggle to comply and file their monthly returns on time.

Even before the GST filings kick in, business surveys showed both the services and manufacturing sectors contracting at their fastest rate in years, heralding a likely dip in indirect tax revenues.

The government has allowed firms to file simplified, self-assessed GST returns by 20 August for the month of July, when the tax was launched.

They will have to file complete returns in early September that itemise and reconcile every single sales invoice under a regime that, by comparison with other countries, is labour- and data-intensive.

More than 7 million existing taxpayers have activated accounts on the GST’s portal — although around a third have yet to complete the form-filling required to file a full tax return, Kumar said.

Another 1.3 million new firms have registered to pay GST.

He waved away concerns that companies would not be able to cope, saying that those used to paying value-added tax —now abolished — were used to online filing.

Although companies can upload invoices directly into the GST portal, big businesses will rely on a new breed of service provider whose applications can format, reconcile and upload invoices in bulk.

Of a first batch of 34 services providers that have been accredited, only 18 have received permission to go live. “I have been urging them to speed up their work,” Kumar said.

Source: http://www.livemint.com

Narendra Modi government identifies 5 ports to boost cruise tourism

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Union minister for shipping Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday announced that the government has identified five major ports — Mumbai, Mormugao, Mangalore, Chennai and Cochin — to boost cruise tourism in India.

While the number of Indians who took a cruise in 2016-17 was 2 lakh, the number could go up to 40 lakh, according to a report prepared by consultants Bermelo & Ajamil jointly with Ernst & Young. Of this, 80% or 32 lakh passengers are expected to take cruises from the Mumbai port alone.

However, Gadkari added that the cruise tourism industry is facing challenges on many issues and that he would make a representation to the finance ministry to waive the goods and services tax (GST), levied at 5% currently on all cruise ships, as well as establish a zero income tax regime.

While the largest cruise line operator, Carnival PLC, is looking to increase the number of cruise liners in India, David Dingle, the company’s chairman told FE that the country must create a domestic cruising tax regime competitive with tax regimes elsewhere in the world.

“In principle, the cruise industry will not come to a part of the world where it has to pay GST on the ticket price and on the sales made on board. We will not bring our ships here in any significant numbers all the while that cruising attracts any GST,” he said. Moreover, Dingle added that international cruise companies have to have the right to repatriate their profits through double tax treaties.

Carnival PLC sold 181,000 cruises in India in 2016, registering a compounded annual growth rate of 31%.

Current estimates are that over 120,000 Indians book a cruise each year with over 90% of them travelling to Singapore to board a cruise liner. To cater to this growing market, the Indian government wants to increase the number of cruise liners that come to India, eliminating the need for cruise seekers to fly abroad to board a ship.

The Indian coastline saw 150 cruise ship visits in 2016 and the government is aiming to increase this to about 955 in the next few years.

Source: http://www.financialexpress.com/industry/narendra-modi-government-identifies-5-ports-to-boost-cruise-tourism/799965/

SEBI crackdown on trading in 331 shell companies blocks investors’ Rs 9,000 cr

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The government crackdown against 331 “suspected shell companies” has hit several investors, including mutual funds and small investors, who hold shares worth nearly Rs 9,000 crore in these companies.

 

In a late circular on Monday, market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) directed stock exchanges to immediately restrict trading in 331 companies identified as “shell companies” by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in consultation with the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and the income-tax (I-T) department.

 

While, by definition, a shell company is one without any business operations or assets, several companies with active business dealings too were part of the  list with 331 names. At least five companies in the list have market capitalisation (m-cap) of over Rs 500 crore each, with diverse shareholding from institutional as well as retail investors.

 

These companies have been placed in the so-called graded surveillance measure (GSM) stage VI, where trading in the security is allowed only once a month with “surveillance deposit” of three times the trade value.

 

Companies, including J Kumar Infraprojects (m-cap of Rs 2,150 crore), Prakash Industries (Rs 2,124 crore), Parsvnath Developers (Rs 1,036 crore), and multinational company SQS India BFSI (Rs 535 crore), termed the “shell company” classification as wrongful and urged Sebi and exchanges to reconsider the directions.

 

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“It is hereby clarified J Kumar is not a shell company and the suspicion of the regulator is uncalled for. Our company’s compliance track record, both with the exchanges and Registrar of Companies, has been impeccable,” said the Mumbai-based infra developer, highlighting the various projects it currently working on, including some government contracts.

 

Sebi sources said over three dozen companies in the list technically don’t fall under the definition of a shell company and the circular maybe revised to correct the nomenclature.  “The regulator is verifying the companies who have raised grievances. However, a rectification may take some time as the exchange needs to conduct an audit and submit a report to Sebi. If there is an all-clear given by the auditors and the regulatory authorities involved, Sebi can lift the ban,” said a source.
Another source said the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has widened the scope of shell companies. Those with cases against them in the SFIO or those that have evaded taxes are part of the list. A finance ministry official said concerns of investors in these companies will be looked into.
Several companies made detailed representations to Sebi and corporate affairs ministry, stating they can’t be termed as shell companies. “There could be a possibility that companies who are listed in the shell categories are genuine. In that case, they can always approach Sebi and stock exchanges to remove the ban. This is more of a preventive action and could be rectified if an entity is not found guilty,” said J N Gupta, managing director at Stakeholders Empowerment Services (SES).

 

Experts said the while all companies may not be shell companies, it is possible that the enforcement agencies may have found some dubious links and decided to take action.

 

“This is in continuation of strong messages being sent to corporate entities that frauds of any nature will face strong action. Greater vigil and networking of several databases would throw up more malpractices and stricter action,” said Prithvi Haldea, founder-chairman at Prime Database.

 

Government’s fight against market manipulation to evade LTCG

 

Several probes by the I-T department and Sebi have shown that listed shell companies were being used to launder money by using the stock exchange route. The typical modus operandi has been to buy shares of shell firms, jack up the prices and sell shares after a year to claim long-term capital gains (LTCG) exemption.

 

The government decided to crack down on such sham transactions after the Special investigation teams (SIT) on black money suggested a mechanism to detect shell companies and put in place checks and balances to curb stock market abuse.

 

In the last three years, the I-T department has identified over 1,155 shell companies which were used as conduits by over 22,000 beneficiaries. The amount involved in non-genuine transactions of such beneficiaries was over Rs 13,300 crore.  So far, the I-T department has launched criminal prosecution complaints against 47 persons. The SFIO, too, has undertaken the exercise of preparing comprehensive digital database of shell companies and their associates. Based on the SFIO report, the MCA has removed 162,618 companies from the Registrar of Companies.

Income Tax Return Filings Grew 25%, Says Government

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Income tax collection showed a surge. The number of returns filed as on August 5, 2017, grew to 2.82 crore as compared to 2.26 crore last year, the government said.

The number of Income Tax Returns (ITRs) filed for 2016-17 year grew by 25 per cent to 2.82 crore, as increased number of individuals filed their tax returns post demonetisation, the tax department said today. The growth in ITRs filed by individuals is 25.3 per cent with over 2.79 crore returns having been received up to August 5 as against over 2.22 crore returns filed in the corresponding period last fiscal.

“As a result of demonetisation and Operation Clean Money, there is a substantial increase in the number of Income Tax Returns (ITRs) filed,” an official statement said. The total number of returns filed as on August 5 stands at over 2.82 crore as against over 2.26 crore filed during the corresponding period of 2016-17. This was an increase of 24.7 per cent compared to growth rate of 9.9 per cent in the previous year.

The last date for filing of income tax returns by individuals and HUFs, who need not get their accounts audited, was August 5.

The finance ministry said that the number of ITRs filed showed that substantial number of new tax payers have been brought into the tax net subsequent to demonetisation. The effect of demonetisation is also clearly visible in the growth in direct tax collections, it said.

Advance tax collections of personal income tax (other than Corporate Tax) as on August 5 showed a growth of about 41.79 per cent over the corresponding period in 2016-17. Personal Income Tax under Self Assessment Tax (SAT) grew at 34.25 per cent over the corresponding period in 2016-17.

“The above figures amply demonstrate the positive results of the government’s commitment to fight the menace of black money,” it added.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), which is the apex policy making body of the I-T department, is committed in its resolve to eradicate tax evasion in a non-intrusive manner and widening of tax base.

To fight the menace of black money, the government had on November 8, 2016, demonetised old 500 and 1000 rupee notes and asked holders of such notes to deposit in bank accounts. The I-T department had then launched operation clean money to clamp down on unaccounted money funnelled into bank accounts post demonetisation.

 

Source: http://www.ndtv.com/business/notes-ban-impact-income-tax-return-filings-grew-25-collections-jump-1734604