-Macroscan.com In his speech introducing the 2012-13 budget, the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had declared his intention to introduce a General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR) to counter ''aggressive tax avoidance schemes''. What GAAR means is that even if a transaction appears to be legally valid, if it is entered into for the sole purpose of tax avoidance, then the Indian tax authorities can deny tax benefit to the concerned entity. GAAR...

-The Times of India Putting health over revenue, the Delhi government on Monday announced a ban on all gutka products in the capital. The ban, which includes sale, manufacture, distribution, transportation, display and storage of these products, is expected to take effect in a day or two. The ban will cover pan masalas containing tobacco and other packaged chewing tobacco products. "Our government was always in favour of putting a ban on gutka...

-Live Mint/ The Wall Street Journal Contributions more than doubled between 2004 and 2009 polls; experts say published figures just tip of the iceberg  Contributions, including money from top companies, to the country’s two largest political parties, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), more than doubled between the 2004 and 2009 general elections. This revelation affirms a trend of companies, most of which are listed, opting for a transparent route to...

-The Economic Times At a time when the Rangarajan committee is giving final touches to its recommendations on sugar deregularisation, The Union food ministry has come up with two proposals for fixing new retail price of sugar sold in ration shops (levy sugar) to reduce the food subsidy bill. According to the first proposal, the food ministry has recommended to free up the prices of levy sugar and allow state governments to...

-Outlook Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has assets worth around Rs 10.73 crore, double that of last year, but a number of his cabinet colleagues are much richer than him. Among the richer cabinet ministers are Praful Patel with assets of approximately Rs 52 crore, Sharad Pawar with property worth around Rs 22 crore and M K Azagiri with Rs 9.50 crore, according to updated list of assets of the ministers posted on...