Tax & Accounting

SEBI Mulls Trade in Euro and Yen Futures

Sept. 4 – As the dominance of the dollar as global currency drops, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), India's capital market regulator, said it is mulling the introduction of rupee-euro and rupee-yen contracts in currency futures soon. Currently, only rupee-dollar contracts are allowed for trading in currency futures. Sebi is in the process of studying the market for rupee-yen and rupee-euro and the contracts would be launched after considering the outcome of the study, Sebi Chairman C B Bhave told Business Standard. "Now, it is only rupee and dollar in currency futures. Later, we could see more hard currencies. NRIs and FIIs too can be allowed on this platform," Bhave added.

Government extends tax holiday for software firms

April 30 – Giving impetus to Indian software companies to continue steaming ahead, Finance Minister P Chidambaram threw an extra year of corporate tax exemption to software exporters.

The Hindustan Times reported that the scheme aided by which the country’s US$41 billion IT export grew to global heights, was set to expire in March 2009. STPI was introduced in 1999 to give a fillip to the then nascent Indian IT industry. Companies located in STPI are not taxed on revenues earned from exporting software (which includes writing codes or computers of US & UK companies).

“As things stand, the Budget for 2009-10 may not be presented in February 2009 but only after the elections. In order to avoid any uncertainty as we draw close to March 31, .2009, it has been decided the exemptions continued until March 31, 2010,” Chidambaram said while replying to the debate on Finance Bill 2008-09 in the Lok Sabha.