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Threshold limit of exemption from personal income tax in the case of all assesses increased to Rs.150,000.

The slabs and rates of tax are :

Up to Rs.150,000                                                  NIL
Rs.150,001 to Rs.300,000                                     10 per cent
Rs.300,001 to Rs.500,000                                     20 per cent
Rs.500,001 and above                                          30 per cent

In case of a woman assessee, the threshold limit increased from Rs.145,000 to Rs.180,000  

In case of senior citizens, the threshold limit increased from Rs.195,000 toRs.225,000 

No change in the corporate income tax rates.
No change in the rate of surcharge. 

Senior Citizen Saving Scheme 2004 and the Post Office Time Deposit Account added to the basket of saving instruments under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act.

Additional deduction of Rs.15,000 allowed under Section 80D to an individual paying medical insurance premium for his/her parent or parents.

Benefit of amortization of certain preliminary expenses under Section 35D allowed to assessee in the services sector. Corporate debt instruments issued in demat form and listed on recognized stock exchanges exempted from TDS.   

Crèche facilities, sponsorship of an employee-sportsperson, organizing sports events for employees and guest houses excluded from the purview of FBT. 

Parent company allowed to set off the dividend received from its subsidiary company against dividend distributed by the parent company provided that the dividend received has suffered DDT and the parent company is not a subsidiary of another company. 

Insert a new sub-section (11C) in Section 80-IB to grant a five year tax holiday to hospitals located in any place outside the urban agglomerations especially in tier-2 and tier-3 towns; this window will be open for the period April 1, 2008 to March 31, 2013. 

Five year holiday from income tax being granted to two, three or four star hotels established in specified districts having UNESCO-declared ‘World Heritage Sites’; the hotel should be constructed and start functioning during the period April 1, 2008 to March 31, 2013. 

Rate of tax on short term capital gains under Section 111A & Section 115AD increased to 15 per cent. 

STT paid to be treated like any other deductible expenditure against business income 

Levy of STT, in the case of options to be only on premium, where the option is not exercised; liability to be on the seller; where the option is exercised, levy to be on the settlement price and the liability on the buyer; no change in the present rates. 

Commodities Transaction Tax (CTT) to be introduced on the same lines as STT on options and futures. 

Banking Cash Transaction Tax (BCTT) being withdrawn with effect fromApril 1, 2009. 

CST

Central Sales Tax rate being reduced from 3 per cent to 2 per cent from April 1, 2008.

Indian Market News Budget 2008, India Budget

Customs duties

1. No change in the peak rate of customs duty. 
2. Customs duty to be reduced from 10 per cent to 5 per cent on certain specified life saving drugs and on the bulk drugs used for the manufacture of such drugs. They are also being exempted from excise duty or countervailing duty. 
3. Specified parts of set top boxes and specified raw materials for use in the IT/electronic hardware industry to be exempted from customs duty. 
4. Customs duty on convergence products to be reduced from 10 per cent to 5 per cent to establish parity between devices used in the information/ communication sector and the entertainment sector   

Excise duty

1. General CENVAT rate on all goods reduced from 16 per cent to 14 per cent to give a stimulus to the manufacturing sector. 
2. Excise duty reduced on small cars from 16 per cent to 12 per cent and on hybrid cars from 24 per cent to the general revised rate of 14 per cent. 
3. Excise duty reduced on two wheelers and three wheelers from 16 per cent to 12 per cent. 
4. Excise duty is to be reduced from 16 per cent to nil on a few mass consumption items including composting machines, wireless data cards, packaged coconut water, tea and coffee mixes, and puffed rice. 
5. Excise duty being exempted on end-use basis, on refrigeration equipment (consisting of compressor, condenser units, evaporator, etc) above 2 TR (tone refrigeration) utilizing power of 50 KW and above. 
6. Excise duty being increased on packaged software from 8 per cent to 12 per cent, bringing at par with customized software attracting a service tax of 12 per cent.   

Service tax

1. Four services brought under service tax net namely,
   1. asset management service provided under ULIP,
   2. services provided by stock/commodity exchanges and clearing houses;   
   3. right to use goods, in cases where VAT is not payable;
   4. Customized software, to bring it on par with packaged software and other IT services.
2. Threshold limit of exemption for small service providers increased from Rs.8 lakhs per year to Rs.10 lakh per year.

Indian Market News Budget 2008, India Budget, Indirect Taxes

The Finance Minister has provided tax relief to all tax payers by changing the Personal Income Tax slabs.

The revised Tax slabs are as follows:

Income upto 1.5 lakhs - 0%
Income between 1.5 lakhs to 3 lakhs - 10%
Income between 3 lakhs to 5 lakhs - 20%
Income above 5 lakhs - 30%

For women, Income upto 1.8 lakhs is exempt

For senior citizens, Income upto 2.25 lakh is exempt

Indian Market News Budget FY08, India Budget, Tax Slabs

• FM confident of maintaining 8.8% GDP growth average
• Agriculture estimates to grow at 2.6% for FY08
• India to increase Gross Budgetary support in FY09 to 2.4 lakh crores.
• India to spend Rs120bn on National Rural Health Plan
• Education and Health Sector to be twin pillars of growth 
• Allocation for education to be raised to Rs34,400cr from Rs28,674cr 
• 16,534cr allocated for Health Sector an increase of about 15%
• 6000 High Quality Schools to be built
• Govt to set up 3 IITs, 3 IISCs
• Complete waiver of loans to small and marginal farmers

Indian Market News Budget FY08, India Budget

The Bombay Stock Exchange has announced a list of companies which are being shuffled as below:

1) One scrip has been transfered to the T-group whereas the 19 scrips are to continue in T-Group.
2) One scrip to continue in the TS-Group.
3) Eight scrips are eligible to be transfered to the T-Group.
4) 721 scrips are moved from the T-Group to the Original Group.
5) 117 scrips are moved from the TS-Group to the Original Group.

For the Detailed list, please click here

Indian Market News BSE, Indian Markets, NSE, S-Group, Sensex, T-Group, TS-Group

From March 4 to March 18 there will be a change in market timings due to sun outage.  Markets will open at normal time 09:55 and later during the day it will remain closed from 11:45AM to 12:30PM and due to which the closing bell for the day will be extended up to 4:50.

Indian Market News BSE, Indian Markets, midcap, Nifty, NSE, Sensex

The Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) may call off the global tender it had floated for placing around 30 of its vessels under a private manning and management contract.The tender, which was part of SCI’s strategy to tide over the manpower crisis, evoked very poor response with only two parties responding to it, said Mr S. Hajara, Chairman and Managing Director, SCI. International ship managers were not very comfortable with some of the tender conditions, he said.

“We had floated the tender in the hope of getting the world’s best fleet managers to respond, which has not been the case. We don’t want to give our ships to any small or fly-by-night fleet manager. We will give them only to the best in the world, if we have to give,” Mr Hajara told Business Line.

Fleet managers worldwide feel that the Indian Document of Compliance (DOC) and the rules of the Indian flag administrator are much more stringent than that of many other state flags. They find getting officers under such restrictions very difficult, he said.

Faced with acute shortage of marine officers, SCI had decided to give out 15 tankers and 15 bulk carriers to a private agency for management. The entire management of the vessels, including employment of on-board crew and officers, will be the responsibility of the ship manager.

As per the Indian Maritime Law, only seafarers of Indian origin can serve on Indian flag carriers. This has come in the way of hiring other nationals, leaving Indian companies with limited option to resolve their manpower problems.

SCI now plans to approach the maritime authorities to get DOC conditions relaxed and also to seek permission to hire foreign nationals on a select basis.

In case this tender is scrapped, Mr Hajara said “some discussions would have to be undertaken with the Director-General of Shipping for easing some of the rules and regulations in DOC”

Source : Business Line dated 25-02-2008

Indian Market News Fleet managers, maritime authorities, SCI

Reliance Power has decided to offer three bonus shares to its investors for every five held in an effort to compensate for the fall of its share price, However the bonus shares will not be offered to the promoters.
The bonus issue will effectively reduce the Reliance Power’s share price by nearly 40 per cent to Rs 269 for retail investors (who paid Rs 430 a share) and by 37 per cent to Rs 281 for institutional investors. The market reaction to this bonus announcement appeared mixed. One long time broker said it would make little difference since after any such issue of shares, the stock price typically goes down and investors may still find they have not gained much. “However, they may be more favourably disposed towards the group, which has lined up more IPOs,” said another broker, After shareholder approval, the record date for the bonus shares would be communicated through the exchanges.�

IPO, Indian Market News, Market Gossip Bonus allotment, Bonus shares, BSE, CNX 100, midcap, Nifty, NSE, Reliance Power Bonus Shares, Sensex

Nasscom-Deolitte study on Indian IT industry says that the IT Industries have contributed 5.2 percent this year as against 1.2 percent in 1998. The main findings were that the industry also contributed to foreign exchange reerve of the country by increasing export by 36 per cent.
The study said that in 2008, the direct employment from the industry is expected to be around 2 million about 26 per cent growth in last ten years, The study also shed light on few other aspects also according to the study 75 per cent of the workforce employed in these jobs are SSC/HSC or less educated. The industry has had a multiplier effect on other sector of the economy. $15.85 billion spent by the IT/ITES industry in the domestic economy in 2006 generated an additional output of $15.5 billion.

Indian Market News, Market Gossip BSE, GDP growth, IT sector, ITES, midcap, Nasscom, NSE, Sensex, Smallcap

CB Bhave, Chairman of National Securities Depository Ltd, will be the new chief of market regulator SEBI and will replace incumbent M Damodaran.

Bhave, who had earlier served both in the Finance Ministry as well as SEBI, is expected to take charge after Damodaran term ends on February 17, sources said.

There was, however, no official confirmation on the appointment that is believed to have been decided last night after Finance Ministry reportedly took up the issue with the Prime Minister’s Office.

A notification on the appointment of the new SEBI Chairman is expected to be announced shortly. The name of Bhave, along with that of UTI Asset Management Company (AMC) CMD UK Sinha, Canara Bank CMD MBN Rao and Ministry of External Affairs Additional Secretary J Bhagwati, was doing the rounds as a possible successor to Damodaran.

Source: Hindustan Times 14/02/08

Indian Market News, Market Gossip BSE, New sebi chief, NSE, SEBI