Not only India's relief packages are grossly inadequate it is not even spending enough to revive demand in the crisis-hit economy; what is needed is clear: more fiscal spending, not \"keeping the power dry\" for future stimulus or unrealistic claim of a V-shaped recovery

Most governments across the world incentivise debts to drive business even when it leads to over-borrowing, economic instability, tax evasion and adversely impacts investment in public goods. In contrast, equity-driven business has none of these ill-effects, produces better economic outcomes too

In the post-industrial democratic era, they have benefited immensely from the public provisioning of health and education that produces quality labour, infrastructure, natural resources, tax incentives, loan write offs (NPAs), bailouts, stimulus packages, and much more. Yet increasingly they use tax havens, shell companies and other tools to evade and avoid paying back

It is likely that due to the 15-day window for filing returns without paying any interest, many taxpayers have not filed their returns yet which led to GST collections numbers for March transactions being very low till today

Month's GST collections for Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Assam crashed due to coronavirus-induced lockdown; Centre's net April collections may drop from Rs 1 lakh crore to between Rs 45,000-55,000 crore

The tax department has found three senior IRS officials in violation of various Central Civil Services Rules and issued chargesheets against them. They have been divested of their current charges for now

\"Several representations were received by the board with regards to difficulty in implementation of reporting requirements...in view of the global pandemic due to COVID-19 virus and requested for deferring the applicability of the above provisions,\" the CBDT said

Shell companies are intrinsic to the global and Indian economy, but they require a high level of oversight to prevent them from becoming conduits for illicit financial flows

So far, their progress is mixed with individual countries taking more aggressive positions to bring a change to the impact of what would be known several years from now

Tax havens have powerful backers; they include big nations including the UK and the US, reputed international bankers, accountants, law firms and many others which makes it difficult to discipline them

Tax havens are increasingly being used for tax avoidance and other purposes; most of India's FDI inflows and outflows also are routed through them and should be a cause of concern

While some developed economies have adopted anti-tax avoidance GAAR and digital tax on sales of multinationals, India has been deferring operationalisation of GAAR since 2012 and is also handicapped by lack of adequate studies and data

The corporate tax rate cut may have enthused a large section of India Inc, but there are still many companies that do not intend to accept the largesse

The buzz is that the simplified monthly GST form approved by the GST Council last year is finally ready and the new format may be rolled out on a pilot basis in July, after the new government is in place

The task force set up to draft a new direct tax law to replace the existing Income Tax Act has sought 2-3 months extension from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to submit its report.

In the two-page letter seen by Business Today, start-up founders have cautioned the government that if the issue is not resolved immediately, Modi's 'Startup India' movement could be derailed forever.