ICWAI to set up centres for filing e-returns

STAFF WRITER 20:54 HRS IST

New Delhi, Apr 15 (PTI) Apex cost accountants body ICWAI today said it will set up centres for filing returns and tax-related documents electronically.

Under an agreement signed with Central Bureau of Excise and Customs (CBEC), the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India (ICWAI) will provide facilitation centres across the country for e-filing of returns and documents to the central excise and service tax assesses.

"As per the MoU, these services will be available on payment of prescribed service charges for various services such as digitisation of paper documents and on-line filing or uploading of documents," ICWAI said in a statement.

These centres would be set up and operated by the ICWAI members, who have valid certificate of practice issued by the Institute, it said.

BJP seeks apology from German team on Modi remarks

BJP seeks apology from German team on Modi remarks

MUMBAI, April 13: Nearly 400 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activists demonstrated outside the German consulate here on Tuesday to protest “provocative” statements by members of a German parliamentary delegation against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.“A team of delegates consisting German members of parliament belonging to Christian Democratic Union (CDU) visited Gujarat a few days back. Although this delegation was on an unofficial visit, a few members passed comments on the anti-conversion law passed by the Gujarat assembly,” said Atul Bhatkalkar, Mumbai unit general secretary of the BJP.

Bhatkalkar, with other members of the party, also met German Consul General Walter Spechel and submitted to him a memorandum demanding a retraction of the remarks and an unconditional apology from the delegation members.“They should not be commenting on the laws enacted by the sovereign republic of India,” he added.

The BJP activists raised slogans slamming the German delegates outside the consulate office at Nariman Point in south Mumbai. Bhatkalkar said Spechel assured them he would look into the matter.

The German delegation members, who visited Gujarat to study the status of minorities, reportedly justified the European Union’s earlier decision of not granting a visa to Modi.(IANS)

SEBI order on ULIPs a wake-up call for IRDA

SEBI order on ULIPs a wake-up call for IRDA

Chennai, April 12: The order of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) banning 14 life insurers from selling unit-linked insurance products (ULIP) is a wake-up call for the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) to set its and that of the life insurers' house in order, say insurance officials. Though they do not agree with the manner in which SEBI issued its ban order Friday night asking life insurers to stop ULIP sales with immediate effect, officials of life insurance companies say something like this was needed to shake up IRDA.

“All is not well starting from the kind of products that are approved by IRDA to the way it is sold to the policy holders, the high commissions paid to the corporate brokers/bancassurance parters in excess of the legal stipulation,” a senior official of a life insurer told IANS on the condition of anonymity. “It is really ironical that IRDA, which had asked life insurers to defy SEBI's order, is talking about policy holder’s interests,” he said.

“The SEBI order is really a wake-up call for IRDA as to the kind of products it approves (many are purely investment products), the market malpractices and also the way it approves the appointment of top management of life insurers,” another senior official told IANS. “Life insurance is really a long-term business. But what we see and hear is the CEOs and marketing managers talking about top line growth, payment to distributors and paying scant respect to the interests of policy holders,” he added.