-Livemint.com One-off gains from Income Disclosure Scheme 2016 call for scepticism about any immediate claims of demonetisation having widened India’s income tax net News reports have quoted government officials making claims about a record increase in the number of income tax payers in 2016-17. Should such claims be seen as a success of demonetisation in forcing unscrupulous individuals to become a part of income tax net? An analysis of direct tax collection...

-Business Standard Relatives' accounts, meddling with accounting software and shell cos used to hide unaccounted cash Two major civil contractors of Bengaluru, who undertake state government civil contract works from irrigation and other departments, were alleged to have engaged in massive inflation of expenses and investment of unaccounted income in the purchase of immovable properties. Discreet enquiries by the Income Tax (I-T) department revealed that they were helping in the conversion of unaccounted...

-Livemint.com Little has changed in terms of infrastructure gap between India’s rich and poor states between 2005-06 and 2014-15 From expressways in Uttar Pradesh to road tunnels in Jammu and Kashmir, large infrastructure projects are showcased by state governments as examples of development politics. Have these efforts been successful in bridging the infrastructure gap between Indian states? A look at the changes in the Mint state infrastructure index between 2005-06 and 2014-15 shows...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: For the middle class, an immediate impact of GST would be the higher premium outgo due to the increase in rate of tax on insurance following implementation of the Goods and Services Tax. For families that own a car and pay for health and term insurance the increase in annual outgo would be close to Rs 1,000. "The immediate impact will be an increase in the tax...

-The Hindu Ties up with IIT-Kharagpur to gauge happiness levels Happiness, its pursuit and examining its essential nature have been considered the domain of philosophy, an ephemeral rather than tangible value. The Madhya Pradesh government, however, has tasked the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur with finding a quantifiable answer to that eternal question — what constitutes happiness and how happy are people really. The State government had, in July last year, set up the...