Sabka Vishwas scheme announced
Category: Economy
- The government has announced a new scheme aimed at eliminating the bulk of pending tax dispute cases besides providing partial amnesty to those having tax dues.
- Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had, in her Budget speech, announced the Sabka Vishwas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019.
- This scheme will be operationalised from September 1 with the window being open till December 31.
- The two main components of the scheme are dispute resolution and amnesty.
- The dispute resolution component is aimed at liquidating the legacy cases of central excise and service tax that are subsumed in GST and are pending in litigation at various forums.
- The amnesty component of the scheme offers taxpayers the opportunity to pay any outstanding tax and be free of any other consequence under the law.
Tax holiday for start-ups
Category: Economy
- The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) clarified that start-ups with an annual turnover of up to ₹25 crore will continue to get a tax holiday as specified in the Income Tax Act.
- According to Section 80-IAC of the Income Tax Act, eligible start-ups would be granted a tax deduction equal to 100% of the profits for three consecutive assessment years, out of the first seven years from the date of incorporation of the company.
Humanoid robot Fedor sent into space
Category: Sc/tech
- Russia launched an unmanned rocket carrying a life-size humanoid robot that will spend 10 days learning to assist astronauts on the International Space Station.
- Named Fedor, short for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research, the robot is the first ever sent up by Russia.
- Soyuz ships are normally manned on such trips, but no humans were travelling in order to test a new emergency rescue system.
- Fedor, also known as Skybot F850, was strapped into a specially adapted pilot’s seat.
Composite Water Management Index
Category: Environment
- Thirteen of the 27 States and Union Territories have improved their water management practices from last year, an analysis by the NITI Aayog has revealed.
- Gujarat, though it dropped a point, topped the rankings for the second year in a row with a score of 75 out of a maximum possible 100.
- Six States did worse than last year with Delhi garnering the lowest score.
- Composite Water Management Index is a ranking tool developed by the NITI Aayog and unveiled last year.
- The ‘index’ aims at capturing how well States have done on groundwater and surface water restoration, implementing major and medium irrigation projects, watershed development, participatory irrigation management, on-farm water use, rural and urban water supply, and policy and governance.
- These indicators were broken down into 28 objective indicators that include determining whether the State had policies and infrastructure in place to conserve groundwater, or its performance in providing piped water to villages.
FATF group ‘blacklists’ Pakistan
Category: International
- Pakistan has been placed on the lowest rung, or “blacklist”, of the Financial Action Task Force’s Asia Pacific Group (APG) for non-compliance and non-enforcement of safeguards against terror financing and money laundering.
- The APG, one of nine regional affiliates of the FATF, met in Canberra from August 18 to 23 to discuss a five-year review of the Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) for Pakistan.
- While the placing does not bring any new punitive measures on Pakistan, it will mean quarterly reporting to the group on improvement in its financial safeguards.
- At present, Pakistan is on the “greylist” of the FATF, a common group for countries that are termed “high risk and non-cooperative jurisdictions”. The Paris plenary will decide whether to remove Pakistan from the greylist, continue the listing, or downgrade it to a blacklist of non-cooperative countries.
- The downgrade might not occur, given that any three countries in the FATF can veto it, and Pakistan is likely to secure the backing of China, Turkey and Malaysia.
Russia launches floating nuclear reactor
Category: International
- Russia launched the world’s first floating nuclear reactor sending it on an epic journey across the Arctic.
- Loaded with nuclear fuel, the Akademik Lomonosov with a crew of 69 left the port of Murmansk to begin its 5,000 km voyage to Pevek in Siberia.
Development finance institution
Category: Economy
- The government’s proposal to set up a development financial institution (DFI) is expected to solve the infrastructure financing needs of the country, since banks do not have the long-term funds to finance such projects.
- Over the years, some of the major development finance institutions were merged with their banking outfits such as ICICI and IDBI.
Angel tax relief for start-ups
Category: Economy
- Finance Minister has provided the much-needed relief for the start-up community by announcing that angel tax will not be applicable on entities registered with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
- While Sec 56(2) (viib) of the Income Tax Act — under which the tax is levied — would stay, it would not be applicable to start-ups that register with the DPIIT.
- Angel tax is imposed on the excess share capital raised by an unlisted firm, over and above the fair market value of its shares.
- This tax usually impacts start-ups and the angel investments they attract.
- While aimed at curbing money-laundering, the angel tax also resulted in a large number of genuine start-ups receiving notices from the tax department.
