Budget 2018-19

  Government officials are due to meet and discuss the proposal as early as Wednesday afternoon in New Delhi, says Bloomberg. India is considering a proposal for foreign investors to own as much as 20% in Life Insurance Corporation, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, which would enable them to participate in the nation’s biggest initial public offering. Under discussion is a plan to amend FDI rules so that investors can pick up the stake without the government’s approval under the so-called automatic route, the person said, asking not to be identified as the deliberations are private. Government officials are due to meet and discuss the proposal as early as Wednesday afternoon in New Delhi, the person said. A finance ministry spokesman didn’t immediately respond to calls seeking comment. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is relying on money from the state-run insurer’s IPO to meet its budget deficit target for the financial year through March 2022 as the pa...

I-T wing identifies over 18,000 revised returns, claiming false refunds in Mumbai, Bengaluru With less than a month left for revising income-tax (I-T) returns for 2016-17, the I-T department has unearthed a giant fraud in multiple cities, where government employees allegedly claimed huge tax refunds forging documents, inflating expenses and not revealing complete information. In Mumbai alone, around 17,000 revised returns have been filed claiming refunds. Similarly, in Bengaluru, the I-T department has found over 1,000 returns filed with inflated claims on account of payments towards home loans. Since the I-T department is still investigating the matter, the loss to the department could not be ascertained, but it could go up to over Rs 10 billion, sources said. They added most of these refunds were being claimed by employees working for the government or in public sector undertakings (PSUs). “These assessees’ original returns were already processed by the cent...