Business Today 18-Apr-21

Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey, who retired recently, has a cheeky way to describe the tax department’s new-found prowess — it’s ability to put two-and-two together in identifying tax evaders, digitally, electronically and with precision. “All major transactions are being shown in 26AS. How much stocks you purchased, how much mutual funds, which property you purchased or sold, how much is your fixed deposit, how much money have you remitted abroad, so that even by mistake he does not forget to include those transactions in the tax returns,” says Pandey with a straight face. For years, tax authorities operated in silos. Even within the finance minis-try, information sharing was case to case and occasional. Information matching from other transactions such as land, share market and mutual funds and large value…

The inflows rose 37 per cent to $26.2 billion in October-December 2020 compared to $19.09 billion in the year-ago period, with $19.3 billion coming in November and December alone FDI INFLOWS (Y-o-Y %) FDI INFLOWS ($ million) Cumulative data for April-December for all the years Source: DIPP…

Retail inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 5.03 cent in February from 4.1 per cent in January At all-India level, inflation in the food & beverages group rose to 4.3 per cent in February 2021 from 2.7 per cent in January 2021 Inflation in the fuel & light group fell to 3.5 per cent from 3.9 per cent in January but that in the clothing & footwear group rose from 3.8 per cent to 4.2 per cent CONSUMER PRICE INDEX (% Y-o-Y) Source: Mospi…

Passenger vehicle sales rose 10.6 per cent in February, mainly due to low base of February 2020 when India was transitioning from BS-IV to BS-VI emission norms Two-wheeler sales fell 16.1 per cent while sales of three-wheelers and commercial vehicles declined 49.7 per cent and 29.5 per cent, respectively The best performing segment was tractors with 18.9 per cent growth Source: SIAM TRACTOR 61,351 Units 18.9% Y-o-Y 1.0% M-o-M PASSENGER VEHICLE 2,54,058 Units 10.6% Y-o-Y -9.8% M-o-M COMMERCIAL VEHICLE 59,020 Units -29.5% Y-o-Y 5.7% M-o-M TWO-WHEELER 10,91,288 Units -16.1% Y-o-Y -6.2% M-o-M THREE-WHEELER 33,319 Units -49.7% Y-o-Y 7.3% M-o-M…

On March 25, 2020, all 259 aircraft of India’s largest airline by market share, IndiGo, were grounded as the government suspended commercial flights — domestic and international — indefinitely due to rising Covid cases. While Indian aviation has seen numerous ups and downs, the March-May 2020 period was the worst-ever. As the market leader and the country’s largest low-cost carrier (LCC), the scale of damage for IndiGo was bigger than the rest. While revenues stopped coming, fixed costs started eating into profits, and in turn, cash reserves. In April, agencies such as CAPA India predicted a loss of $1.5 billion for IndiGo and SpiceJet over the next six months. The impact was so brutal that some brokerages stopped tracking the sector, and IndiGo in particular. “We believe the impact on…

Last year, a businessman from Rajkot, Gujarat, declared an income of less than ₹5 lakh in his tax return. However, information collated by the Income Tax (I-T) Department showed he had deposited ₹10 crore — and withdrawn ₹7.5 crore — in cash during the year. The department sent him six notices, a dozen SMS alerts and tried every means to contact him. He remained elusive, forcing it to raid the business premises mentioned in the I-T return. It was a wrong address. I-T officials took the home address from his bank, but he was missing from there. It is now in the process of attaching his bank account and other assets. Far away, in Alwar, Rajasthan, another businessman deposited ₹27 crore cash in his bank account in 2017/18 and ₹22…