-The Hindu It has sharply lifted tax buoyancy and ushered many new return filers into the income tax net The argument about whether demonetisation was good or bad for the economy refuses to die down even a year after the event. Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan took potshots at it in a recent speech. While one can endlessly debate, with very little data, on whether the ban on high-value currency notes dealt a...

-The Times of India • What does the Finance Commission do? In India’s federal structure, taxation powers and obligations for various services — like law and order, health, education — are unequally shared between the Centre and the states. Hence, the Constitution mandates the setting up of a Finance Commission (FC) every five years to recommend how revenues from central Taxes should be shared between the Centre and the states. A fair...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that the mandatory linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts and PAN cards was intended to screen genuine tax payers from dishonest elements evading Taxes. The government made the comments while trying to allay fears that people could be harassed for money-laundering offences. Appearing for the Centre and the Aadhaar-issuing Unique Identification Authority of India, additional solicitor-general Tushar Mehta told a five-judge...

-The Economic Times KOLKATA: Charges for SMS alerts on banking transactions may not squeeze account holders much but can be a reasonable earning for many banks, especially in accounts with meagre monthly transactions though income from SMS alert service goes against the advisory from the sector regulator. While Reserve Bank of India told banks to send SMS alerts for every transaction as means to fight frauds, the regulator also directed banks to...

-Livemint.com Use of population figures from 2011 census instead of 1971 census for sharing tax revenue among states triggers opposition from South India New Delhi: A political storm is brewing in South India over what is normally a largely unnoticed bureaucratic exercise undertaken once in five years to determine how India distributes its pooled tax revenues among its many states. Several chief ministers and opposition leaders of southern states have expressed vehement opposition...