Latest news with #RKavitaRao
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Tax edges, AI whirls, and a still point in memoir
Some days don't unfold, they unravel. Like those unexpected evenings when you step out for a quiet walk and suddenly find yourself wrestling with a gusty storm pulling at your clothes, and sending loose papers cartwheeling down the street. You clutch your hat tighter, instinctively aware that letting go even for a second might mean watching it sail off like a balloon. You squint, you bend, you anchor yourself. Everything's still there — but only if you hold on with purpose. Let's dive in. Parliament, for instance, is gripping tightly to the proposed new income tax law. The draft boasts clarity — 536 sections across 23 chapters — but, as our first editorial points out, it's the windier parts that worry watchers. The parliamentary committee has quietly backed vague discretionary powers for tax officials, powers that might let them peek into emails and social media accounts or define business links as 'direct or indirect.' If that's not a hat-loosening draft, what is? Unless clipped and secured, such broad discretion risks unraveling investor confidence and predictable tax enforcement. Meanwhile, in Delhi, the winds are blowing medals and money. The government has amped up its athlete reward scheme, with Olympic gold winners now set to receive Rs 7 crore. But our second editorial notes that while cash showers are dazzling, they're not enough if Delhi doesn't unshackle its choked public sports infrastructure. Haryana's grassroots sports model shows that it's the steady wind beneath young athletes' wings, not just the grand gusts at the finish line. Elsewhere, GST reforms are being dusted off. As R Kavita Rao writes, the government is debating how to streamline tax slabs and deal with the compensation cess. But tweaking slabs means stirring up vested interests, and dropping the cess could throw revenue plans off balance. In this political breeze, everyone's holding tight to their numbers. Then comes the AI squall. A leading Indian music company has called it their top business risk. As Amit Tandon observes, it's not just lyrics and beats being restructured but boardrooms too must now guard against bias, unregulated experimentation, and a widening skill gap, or risk getting swept away by the algorithmic tide.
Business Standard
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Reform of GST: Simplifying tax rates and restructuring compensation cess
Two important aspects to consider while exploring options for reducing the number of tax rates are the composition of tax revenues by tax rates and an understanding of the elasticity of demand R Kavita Rao Mumbai Listen to This Article There is a lot of anticipation regarding the next phase of reforms of goods and services tax (GST). It is learnt that the Prime Minister's Office has given an in-principle nod to a revamp of GST. The stage is now set for discussion and decisions in the GST Council. This note is a thought experiment to explore options and implications of possible reforms focusing on revenue considerations. The concerns that could guide choices in the reform agenda are those of governments and the taxpayer/consumer community. For governments, there could be a need to increase the effective tax rate. In a
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
27-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Too much of a good thing can ruin the broth too
You know how it goes when you're cooking. A pinch of salt brings everything together but just a little too much, and the whole dish spirals into inedibility. The same goes for masalas, oil, or even coriander, each element has its moment to shine, but only when it's measured, balanced, and timed. We are usually reminded of this when watching someone in the family accidentally dump half a jar of turmeric into the dal. The dish was ruined, of course, but more than that, it strikes that how so much of life and policy is a version of this: well-meaning additions that, when overdone, wreck the mix. Let's dive in. At Nato's summit in The Hague, Donald Trump tried just that balancing act, shifting from combative to collaborative by extracting a pledge from members to hike defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP by 2035. As our first editorial explains, it's a bold turn, especially as the US president reaffirmed support for Nato's core Article 5. But the question remains: will this steep increase, however well-intentioned, deliver deterrence or destabilise already jittery national budgets? Meanwhile, India's latest shot at a national household income survey is another ambitious experiment in dosage. Past attempts have failed either due to mistrust or underreporting. This time, our second editorial notes, success depends not just on methodology, but on gaining trust, adding just enough innovation and transparency, but not so much as to scare away the very data it hopes to collect. R Kavita Rao examines how tax collections are showing their own signs of imbalance. Although personal income tax is holding strong, corporate tax is faltering, and GST is losing steam. With global shocks, welfare pullbacks, and new regimes brewing, the tax system is a simmering pot. Add too many fiscal tweaks too fast, and we could see the whole mixture boil over. Amit Tandon observes a different kind of excess: the Indian mutual fund industry bloated in AUM but lean in profit. Regulatory caps, fee limits, and indistinct product lines are squeezing returns. Yet investor appetite keeps rising. The danger? Over-spicing growth at the cost of long-term sustenance. Finally, Chintan Girish Modi's review of Little Lhasa: Reflections in Exiled Tibet by Tsering Namgyal Khortsa, brings the metaphor home: exile, too, is an added ingredient. One never asked for, but if adapted to wisely, as many Tibetans in Dharamsala have, it can transform displacement into a crucible of renewal. Stay tuned!
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
26-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Rise in personal income tax collections encouraging, sustainability suspect
Sustained growth in PIT would depend on sustained expansion in taxable economic activity, one that generates employment to support salary income and contributes to business income as well R Kavita Rao Listen to This Article A recent press release on direct tax collections up to June 19 suggests a moderation in collections. Net collections are reported to be 1.39 per cent lower than those in the previous financial year, attributed to a decline in corporation tax collections. Is this a short-term fluctuation, or are there some other factors at play? Looking at the annual growth in revenue collections for the three major taxes, corporate income tax (CIT), non-corporation income tax (referred to as PIT) and central goods and services tax (CGST), there is a clear moderation in revenues from CIT and CGST. CIT growth fell
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
30-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Finding clarity in a shifting economic spectrum
On some days, have you caught yourself squinting at headlines like you're holding a magnifying glass over a world that refuses to be flattened into black-and-white clarity. But magnifying only zooms in, it doesn't reveal the layers. Like watching sunlight hit a prism, you need angles, reflection, dispersion. That's how the full picture — flawed, fractured, vivid — comes into view, revealing a world more kaleidoscopic than chaotic. Let's dive in. Take the sharp twist in India's FDI story. On paper, $81 billion sounds like a gold rush, but zoom out and the prism reveals a streak of nervous exits: $51 billion repatriated, and Indian companies themselves rushing abroad, notes our first editorial. The net number, just $0.35 billion, isn't a whisper, it's an alarm. Foreign investors seem unsure whether India's glow is real or refracted. At the same time, Indian firms are chasing confidence offshore, reflecting a deeper discomfort at home. And yet, right alongside, corporate earnings shimmer with hints of revival. In Q4FY25, profits quietly rose and taxes paid surged nearly 14 per cent, a sign of businesses stepping out of the shadows. Capital goods, logistics, and pharma sectors bounced back with double-digit PAT growth. FMCG and IT still feel the squeeze, but this broad-based upturn could be the start of a new business cycle, highlights our second editorial. Not a spotlight moment, but a refracted, emerging glow. But what happens when we stare too hard at numbers without adjusting the lens? R Kavita Rao breaks down India's tax gaps, not just what's missing, but why we might be misreading it. Strong in personal and consumption taxes, weaker in corporate and trade, India's performance isn't bad, but it's not benchmark-proof either. Differences in exemptions, valuation, and regime structure mean we must resist lazy comparisons. It's not about sharpening the magnifier, it's about tilting the prism. Meanwhile, Himanshu Pathak and P K Joshi take us to the fields, where Indian agriculture dreams big. Food surpluses mask shrinking land, drying wells, and climate uncertainty. The path to a developed nation by 2047 runs through AI-driven seeds, smart irrigation, and agri-entrepreneurship. Innovation isn't just a light bulb, it's a spectrum of actions, from lab to land. And as Gunjan Singh reviews The Political Thought of Xi Jinping by Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung, we see a different kind of prism, ideological, rigid, curated. Xi's China refracts every citizen through the Party's lens. Individual identity dissolves into national narrative. History is shaped not by what happened, but by how it's illuminated. In Xi's vision, the state is the sole source of light, and shadows aren't allowed. Stay tuned, and remember, the world isn't monochrome, it's full-spectrum!
