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Finance secretary says onus of passing on the benefits is on companies Companies, including FMCG firms, might be prosecuted if their retailers do not immediately cut the prices of products whose goods and services tax (GST) rates have been slashed. Union Finance Secretary  Hasmukh Adhia  says the retailers or the companies cannot continue with higher prices on grounds that the old stocks have not been exhausted. “We have made provisions for the companies to claim the difference from the government as input tax credit. But I am not willing to accept their argument to postpone passing on the benefits to consumers till they have disposed of their old stocks.” According to him, the new prices should be effective from November 15. The GST Council in its last meeting this month cut the tax rate on 176 items from 28 per cent to 18 per cent and on two to 12 per cent. There was a huge demand to make these cuts. Speaking in a Doordarshan interview in which ...

ArthaKranti claims its leading light Anil Bokil, an Aurangabad-based chartered accountant and architect, was allocated nine minutes' audience with Modi in July this year Pune-based economic think tank ArthaKranti, which claims to have suggested to Prime Minister   Narendra Modi   to demonetise the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, wants the government to abolish income tax and 56 other taxes and replace it by a banking transaction tax, or BTT, of two per cent on earnings. “Imagine, taxes reduced. Petrol at Rs 28 per litre. That is ArthaKranti’s next proposal,” the outfit tweeted on Monday. ArthaKranti, which literally means financial or economic revolution, is a group of technocrats and chartered accountants. It first proposed its five-point proposal for tax reforms in 1999. It had even planned a meeting in Pune on November 11-13 to demand that the PM implement its five-point agenda. According to the organisation, it has had regular interactions with officials in t...