Passage 1
The GST Council on Saturday recommended measures to ease compliances for GST assessees, besides giving relief to working professionals and students living in accommodations outside the educational institutions. However, the issue of giving relief to online gaming companies, casinos and horse racing was not part of the agenda for Saturday’s meeting.
The Council recommended waiving interest and penalties for demand notices issued under Section 73 of the CGST Act (i.e. the cases not involving fraud, suppression or wilful misstatement, etc) for the fiscal years 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. “The condition here is that the full tax demanded is paid up to March 31, 2025,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said giving details of the recommendations of the Council.
the Council recommended fixing a monetary limit for filing appeals by the tax department before the various appellate authorities. It will be ₹20 lakh for GST Appellate Tribunal, ₹1 crore for the High Court and ₹2 crore for the Supreme Court for filing of appeals by the department. “The Tax Authority would generally not go for an appeal if the monetary limit is less than the prescribed by the GST Council,” Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra clarified. However, the assessees are free to appeal.
Source: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/gst-council-r
Get CLAT Online Coaching!
Passage 2
The Reserve Bank of India with the concurrence of the Government of India has decided to put in place a revised Framework on Currency Swap Arrangement for SAARC countries for the period [1]. Under this Framework, the Reserve Bank would enter into bilateral swap agreements with SAARC central banks, who want to avail of the swap facility. It may be recalled that the SAARC Currency Swap Facility was conceptualised with an intention to provide a backstop line of funding for short term foreign exchange liquidity requirements or balance of payment crises of the SAARC countries till longer term arrangements are made. Under the Framework for [1], a separate INR Swap Window has been introduced with various concessions for swap support in Indian Rupee. The RBI will continue to offer swap arrangement in US$ and Euro under a separate US Dollar/ Euro Swap Window with an overall corpus of US$ 2 billion. The Currency Swap Facility will be available to all SAARC member countries, subject to their signing the bilateral swap agreements.
Source: https://www.business-standard.com/markets/capital-market-news/
