Saturday, April 2, 2011

ST Amendment in Service Tax Rules

ST : Amendment in Service Tax Rules

Notification No.26/2011 – Service Tax, dated 31-3-2011

G.S.R. (E).- In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) read with sub-section (2) of section 94 of the Finance Act, 1994 (32 of 1994), the Central Government hereby makes the following rules further to amend the Service Tax Rules, 1994, namely :-

1. (1) These rules may be called the Service Tax (Second Amendment) Rules, 2011.

(2) They shall come into force on the 1st day of April, 2011. .

2. In the Service Tax Rules, 1994 (hereinafter referred to as the “said rules”), in rule (4A), in sub-rule (1),-

(i) for the words “provision of”, the words “completion of” shall be substituted;

(ii) after the second proviso, the following proviso shall be inserted, namely:-

“Provided also that in case of continuous supply of service, every person providing such taxable service shall issue an invoice, bill or challan, as the case may be, within fourteen days of the date when each event specified in the contract, which requires the service receiver to make any payment to service provider, is completed.”;

3. In rule 6 of the said rules,-

(a) in sub-rule (3),-

(i) after the words “partially for any reason”, the words “or where the amount of invoice is renegotiated due to deficient provision of service, or any terms contained in a contract,” shall be inserted;

(ii) for clause (a), the following clause shall be substituted, namely:-

“(a) has refunded the payment or part thereof, so received for the service provided to the person from whom it was received; or”

(b) in sub-rule (7B),-

(i) for the words and figures “at the rate of 0.1 per cent. of the gross amount of currency exchanged”, the words “at the following rate” shall be substituted;

(ii) for the words “of the Act”, the following shall be substituted, namely:- “of the Act, namely:

(a) 0.1 per cent. of the gross amount of currency exchanged for an amount upto rupees 100,000, subject to the minimum amount of rupees 25; and

(b) rupees 100 and 0.05 per cent. of the gross amount of currency exchanged for an

amount of rupees exceeding rupees 100,000 and upto rupees 10,00,000; and

(c) rupees 550 and 0.01 per cent. of the gross amount of currency exchanged for an amount of rupees exceeding 10,00,000, subject to maximum amount of rupees 5000:

Provided that the person providing the service shall exercise such option for a financial year and such option shall not be withdrawn during the remaining part of that financial year.”


FII Investment in Corporate Debt Liberalised

FII Investment in Corporate Debt Liberalised
Investment in infrastructure holds the key to India’s economic growth. It has been projected that India’s investment requirement in the 12th Five Year Plan is over a trillion USD of which half is expected to come from the private sector. To encourage greater private sector participation in the development of infrastructure in the country, the Union Finance Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee during his budget speech of 2011-12 announced the decision of the government to further liberalise the policy relating to the investment in corporate bond market.

In order to enhance the flow of funds to the infrastructure sector, it was announced in the budget that the FII limit for investment in the corporate bonds, with a residual maturity of over five years and issued by companies in the infrastructure sector, would be increased by an additional limit of USD 20 billion taking the limit to USD 25 billion. With this, the total limit available to the FIIs for investment in corporate bonds would be USD 40 billion. Since most of the infrastructure companies are organized in the form of SPVs, FIIs would also be permitted to invest in unlisted bonds. The investment in the bonds, both listed and unlisted, should have a minimum lock-in period of three years. However, the FIIs may be allowed to trade amongst themselves during the lock-in period.

Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) today issued circular to implement the above announcement made by the Union Finance Minister Shri Mukherjee in the budget of 2011-12. This circular has modified the policy where the FIIs and the sub accounts registered with SEBI were permitted to invest in corporate bonds up to USD 20 billion; out of which USD 5 billion was allocated for investment in corporate bonds with a residual maturity of over five years and issued by companies in the infrastructure sector as defined in the ECB policy.

To facilitate trading by FIIs, a special trading window shall be provided by Exchanges on the same lines as is available for equities in companies where the overall FII investment reaches the maximum limit.

DSM/BY/GN
(Release ID :71398)

Filing of Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Account in eXtensible Business Reporting Language( XBRL) mode.

General Circular No. 09/2011

17/70/2011 –CL.V

Government of India

Ministry of Corporate Affairs

5th Floor, A Wing, Shastri Bhavan,

Dr. R.P. Road, New Delhi

Dated the 31.03.2011

To

All Regional Directors

All Registrar of Companies

Subject: Filing of Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Account in eXtensible Business Reporting Language( XBRL) mode.

It has been decided by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to mandate certain class of companies to file balance sheets and profit and loss account for the year 2010-11 onwards by using XBRL taxonomy. The Financial Statements required to be filed in XBRL format would be based upon the Taxonomy on XBRL developed for the existing Schedule VI, as per the existing, (non converged) Accounting Standards notified under the Companies (Accounting Standards) Rules, 2006. The said Taxonomy is being hosted on the website of the Ministry at www.mca.gov.in shortly. The Frequently Asked Questions ( FAQs ) about XBRL have been framed by the Ministry and they are being annexed as Annexure I with this circular for the information and easy understanding of the stakeholders.

Coverage in Phase I

2. The following class of companies have to file the Financial Statements in XBRL Form only from the year 2010-2011 :-

(i) All companies listed in India and their subsidiaries, including overseas subsidiaries;

(ii) All companies having a paid up capital of Rs. 5 Crore and above or a Turnover of Rs. 100 crore or above .

Additional Fee Exemption

3. All companies falling in Phase -I are permitted to file upto 30-09-2011 without any additional filing fee.

Training Requirement

4. Stakeholders desirous to have training on the XBRL or on taxonomy related issues, may contact the persons as mentioned in Annexure II.

(J.N. Tikku)

Joint Director

Tel: 011-23381295

__________________________________________________________________

Annexure I

Frequently Asked Questions


1. What is XBRL?


XBRL is a language for the electronic communication of business and financial data which is revolutionizing business reporting around the world. It provides major benefits in the preparation, analysis and communication of business information. It offers cost savings, greater efficiency and improved accuracy and reliability to all those involved in supplying or using financial data. XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language. It is already being put to practical use in a number of countries and implementations of XBRL are growing rapidly around the world.

2. Who developed XBRL?


XBRL is an open, royalty-free software specification developed through a process of collaboration between accountants and technologists from all over the world. Together, they formed XBRL International which is now made up of over 650 members, which includes global companies, accounting, technology, government and financial services bodies. XBRL is and will remain an open specification based on XML that is being incorporated into many accounting and analytical software tools and applications.

3. What are the advantages of XBRL?


XBRL offers major benefits at all stages of business reporting and analysis. The benefits are seen in automation, cost saving, faster, more reliable and more accurate handling of data, improved analysis and in better quality of information and decisionmaking. XBRL enables producers and consumers of financial data to switch resources away from costly manual processes, typically involving time-consuming comparison, assembly and re-entry of data. They are able to concentrate effort on analysis, aided by software which can validate and process XBRL information. XBRL is a flexible language, which is intended to support all current aspects of reporting in different countries and industries. Its extensible nature means that it can be adjusted to meet particular business requirements, even at the individual organization level.

4. Who can benefit from using XBRL?


All types of organizations can use XBRL to save costs and improve efficiency in handling business and financial information. Because XBRL is extensible and flexible, it can be adapted to a wide variety of different requirements. All participants in the financial information supply chain can benefit, whether they are preparers, transmitters or users of business data.

5. What is the future of XBRL?


XBRL is set to become the standard way of recording, storing and transmitting business financial information. It is capable of use throughout the world, whatever the language of the country concerned, for a wide variety of business purposes. It will deliver major cost savings and gains in efficiency, improving processes in companies, governments and other organisations.

6. Does XBRL benefit the comparability of financial statements?


XBRL benefits comparability by helping to identify data which is genuinely alike and distinguishing information which is not comparable. Computers can process this information and populate both pre defined and customised reports.

7. Does XBRL cause a change in accounting standards?


No. XBRL is simply a language for information. It must accurately reflect data reported under different standards – it does not change them.

8. What are the benefits to a company from putting its financial statements into XBRL?


XBRL increases the usability of financial statement information. The need to re-key financial data for analytical and other purposes can be eliminated. By presenting its statements in XBRL, a company can benefit investors and other stakeholders and enhance its profile. It will also meet the requirements of regulators, lenders and others consumers of financial information, who are increasingly demanding reporting in XBRL. This will improve business relations and lead to a range of benefits.

With full adoption of XBRL, companies can automate data collection. For example, data from different company divisions with different accounting systems can be assembled quickly, cheaply and efficiently. Once data is gathered in XBRL, different types of reports using varying subsets of the data can be produced with minimum effort. A company finance division, for example, could quickly and reliably generate internal management reports, financial statements for publication, tax and other regulatory filings, as well as credit reports for lenders. Not only can data handling be automated, removing time-consuming, error-prone processes, but the data can be checked by software for accuracy.

9. How does XBRL work?


XBRL makes the data readable, with the help of two documents – Taxonomy and instance document. Taxonomy defines the elements and their relationships based on the regulatory requirements. Using the taxonomy prescribed by the regulators, companies need to map their reports, and generate a valid XBRL instance document. The process of mapping means matching the concepts as reported by the company to the corresponding element in the taxonomy. In addition to assigning XBRL tag from taxonomy, information like unit of measurement, period of data, scale of reporting etc., needs to be included in the instance document.

10. How do companies create statements in XBRL?


There are a number of ways to create financial statements in XBRL:

Ø ¾ XBRL-aware accounting software products are becoming available which will support the export of data in XBRL form. These tools allow users to map charts of accounts and other structures to XBRL tags.

Ø ¾ Statements can be mapped into XBRL using XBRL software tools designed for this purpose

Ø ¾ Data from accounting databases can be extracted in XBRL format. It is not strictly necessary for an accounting software vendor to use XBRL; third party products can achieve the transformation of the data to XBRL.

Ø ¾ Applications can transform data in particular formats into XBRL. The route which an individual company may take will depend on its requirements and the accounting software and systems it currently uses, among other factors.

11. Is India a member of XBRL International?


India is now an established jurisdiction of XBRL International. A separate company, under section 25 has been created, to manage the operations of XBRL India. The main objectives of XBRL India are

Ø ¾ To create awareness about XBRL in India

Ø ¾ To develop and maintain Indian Taxonomies

Ø ¾ To help companies, adopt and implement XBRL.


12. Which taxonomies developed for Indian reporting requirements? Where can I find the taxonomies?

Taxonomies for Indian companies are developed based on the requirements of

Ø ¾ Schedule VI of Companies Act,

Ø ¾ Accounting Standards, issued by ICAI

Ø ¾ SEBI Listing requirements. Taxonomies for Manufacturing and service sector (referred as Commercial and

Industrial, or C&I) and Banking sector, is acknowledged by XBRL International. These taxonomies are available athttp://www.xbrl.org/in/

13. Where can I find more information about XBRL?


Please visit www.xbrl.org . Also Ministry of Corporate Affairs would be shortly developing its webpage on XBRL with list of contact persons for training purposes.

14. What are XBRL Documents?


An XBRL document comprises the taxonomy and the instance document. Taxonomy contains description and classification of business & financial terms, while the instance document is made up of the actual facts and figures. Taxonomy and Instance document together make up the XBRL documents.

15. What is Taxonomy?


Taxonomy can be referred as an electronic dictionary of the reporting concepts. Taxonomy consists of all the data definitions, the basic XBRL properties and the interrelationships amongst the concepts. It includes terms such as net income, EPS, cash, etc. Each term has specific attributes that help define it, including label and definition and potentially references. Taxonomies may represent hundreds or even thousands of individual business reporting concepts, mathematical and definitional relationships among them, along with text labels in multiple languages, references to authoritative literature, and information about how to display each concept to a user.

16. What is meant by extending taxonomy?


Taxonomy is extended to accommodate items/relationship specific to the owner of the information. Taxonomy extension therefore can be

a) Modification in the existing relationships

b) Addition of new elements in the taxonomy

c) Combination both a & b

17. Are Taxonomies based on any standards?


Yes, taxonomies are based on the regulatory requirements and standards which are to be followed by the companies. Accordingly, depending on the requirements of every country, there can be country-specific taxonomies.

18. What is an Instance document?


An XBRL instance document is a business report in an electronic format created according to the rules of XBRL. It contains facts that are defined by the elements in the taxonomy it refers to, together with their values and an explanation of the context in which they are placed. XBRL Instances contain the reported data with their values and “contexts”. Instance document must be linked to at least one taxonomy, which defines the contexts, labels or references.

Thus, in order to concluded the usage and explain the XBRL technology which leads to more information exchanges that can be effectively automated by use. This one standard approach leads to the best interest of the company or more so for the international business interests globally that warrant the accuracy of all the financial data for the end users and early collaborative decisions by the companies or those whose interest is involved for acquisition/ rights etc.

Annexure II

(i) Smt. Nirupama Kotru, Director

Ministry of Corporate affairs

5th Floor, ‘A’ Wing, Shastri Bhavan,

Dr.R.P. Road, New Delhi

Contact No. 011-23384470

Email: nirupama.kotru@mca.gov.in

(ii) Dr. Avinash Chandra, Technical Director

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India,

‘ICAI Bhawan’, Post Box No. 7100,

Indraprastha Marg, New Delhi-110002.

Contact No. 011-3011456, 30110427

Email: avinash@icai.org

(iii) Shri Pankaj Srivastava, Joint Director

Ministry of Corporate affairs

5th Floor, ‘A’ Wing, Shastri Bhavan,

Dr.R.P. Road, New Delhi

Contact No. 011-23384657

Email : pankaj.srivastava@nic.in

iss.pankaj@gmail.com

(iv) Dr. Surinder Pal,

Secretary, Committee on Members in Industry (CMII),

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India,

‘ICAI Bhawan’, Indraprastha Marg, New Delhi-110002.

Contact No. 011-30110450

(v) Mr. N.K. Bansal, Secretary,

Continuing Professional Education (CPE),

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India,

‘ICAI Bhawan’, Indraprastha Marg, New Delhi-110002.

Contact No. 0120-3045957

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