Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Income Tax Refund Banker Scheme

Individual and small corporate taxpayers will get income or corporate tax refunds in four months, with the refund banker
scheme spreading across the country soon.
The refunds, arising out of tax payments
and TDS collections, usually take more than a year to reach the average taxpayer.
"Tax and TDS refunds will now reach the individual and small (corporate) taxpayers in about four months (by August 2009). The refund banker scheme may also be implemented across the country," a senior Finance Ministry official said.
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Taxpayers who have filed their returns for the assessment year 2008-09 should now write to their area Income-Tax Assessment Officers quoting their magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) codes (used in the banking industry to facilitate cheque processing) and vital bank account details.
This will help the department to send refunds quickly in any part of the country, the official added.
Officials in the Income-Tax department also added that fast and quick refunds have been made possible this time as the department has finished the process of "data migration" to its central servers from its offices across the country.

OUTCOME OF SUPPORT OF ALL THE MEMBERS OF BCAA

Monday, May 11, 2009

Dear Esteemed Members,NEW DELHI: The accounting regulator the Institute of CharteredAccountants of India (ICAI) has constituted an expert group to suggestsector-specific accounting norms for insurance companies. The moveaims at ensuring that financial statements of insurance firms reflecttrue natures of financial arrangements. ICAI president Uttam PrakashAgarwal confirmed the development. “ICAI is planning to come up withspecific accounting standards for the insurance sector,” he told ET.New standards will help in making financial statements of insurancecompanies — public as well as private — easier for the investors tocomprehend, as it will require the companies to show their fields ofrevenue generation with clarity, he said. These independent accountingstandards for the country’s insurance sector will be in addition tothe already existing accounting norms which the insurance companiesfollows now.The insurance regulator, Insurance Regulatory Development Authority(Irda) has directed all domestic life insurance companies to tightentheir expenses in order to procure durable business. This move cameafter reports surfaced that insurers are making disproportionatelyhuge commission payments to their intermediaries, other thanindividual agents. This, in turn, affects the overall financialstrength of the companies.The definition of related parties to intermediaries should beconformity with the accounting standards of ICAI and Companies Act.The regulator has also stipulated that the information certificategiven by the company to the regulator should have signatures of theinsurer’s chief executive officer, the chief financial officer and thecompliance officer.
OUTCOME OF SUPPORT OF ALL THE MEMBERS OF BCAA