Tvm: KPMG in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Asian School of Business (ASB) held a Post Budget Analysis session in Trivandrum on March 19, 2012. The tax specialists from KPMG - Sachin Menon, Partner & All India Head - Indirect Tax, and Srinath S, Director - Indirect Tax made detailed presentations on the economic aspects of the Union Budget 2012 and the key direct and indirect tax proposals, regulatory amendments and policy announcements for the year 2012-13.

By Sherry Samuel Oommen & Ajith R

Background: The question as to the classification of an item of expense as revenue or capital in nature for income-tax purpose has long been a contentious issue before the courts. The same has been settled by the courts on a case-to-case basis, also setting-forth the general principles relevant for determining the deductibility of an expense as revenue expenditure under section 37(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (‘the Act’). The said issue attains greater significance in the case of tax deductibility of payments made towards purchase of software for the purpose of business, considering the fact that said payments would constitute a major item of expenditure not only for major business houses but also for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

New Delhi: DataWind, a leading provider of wireless web access products and services and the inventor of the world’s least expensive tablet computer, ‘Aakash’, has announced their partnership with GetJar to pre-install the GetJar app store on all Datawind tablets giving all Datawind customers access to download their choice of thousands of free applications.

As part of his Union Budget 2012 proposals, the Finance Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee announced a number of amendments to the Income Tax Act. Let us try to understand a few of these amendments and its implications which impact the common man and / or the small scale business men:

By Korath V Mathew

The Unique Identification project, named ‘Aadhaar’, initiated by the Prime Minister under the chairmanship of renowned Nandan Nilekani has caught the imagination of the nation like never before. While the UID in itself is harmless and purely optional, the far reaching impact on empowerment of the citizens and prevention of impersonation has evoked much of the debate on the topic. Recently there have been many articles in the media against launch of UID in India.

New Delhi: The Department of Information Technology (DIT) under the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India has been renamed Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY). In Hindi it is now Electroniki aur Soochana Praudyogiki Vibhag. The rechristening would be ceremonially formalised today by Shri Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications & IT at New Delhi.