No proof required for LTA & Conveyance allowance claims

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court has said that employers are not under any statutory obligation to collect supporting evidence and furnish it to tax authorities while assessing Conveyance and Leave Travel Allowance (LTA) of their employees. Currently, claims without supporting bills are taxed.

The verdict came as a result of a plea from companies including L&T and ITI.

Quoting Times of India,

In its defense, the revenue department had argued that assessee companies were under statutory obligation under Income Tax Act, 1961, and relevant rules, to collect documentary proof to show that their employee(s) had actually utilized the amount paid towards the leave travel concession and conveyance allowance.

Rejecting the plea, the court in its order said: “The beneficiary of exemption under Section 10(5) (of the Income Tax Act) is an individual employee. There is no circular of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) requiring the employer under Section 192 to collect and examine the supporting evidence to the declaration to be submitted by an employee(s).”

So, until the tax authorities come up with a circular/amendment to clear this out (which I guess they might), claim all your LTA and Conveyance allowances without showing any bills.

More details here.

India’s Per Capita Income grew by 12.7% in 2007-2008

According to Central Statistical Organization (CSO), the per capita income of India has increased to Rs. 33,283 in 2007-08; a healthy growth of 12.7%. The per capita income has been growing above 10% since 2003-04, rising almost 60%.

This is the result of the impressive economic growth rate recorded by India during this time period and is supposedly the indication of an overall improvement in the living standards of people.

I’m not sure how representative a figure this is, in a country that has 4 out of the top 10 richest people in the world, a fair amount of income inequality and a third of the population still living below the poverty line.

More details here.

Inflation rates of India (2008)

This post tracks inflation rates of India for the year 2008. Before that, a few facts about inflation rate calculation in India.

- Inflation in India is based on Wholesale Price Index
- A set of 435 commodities are used for the WPI based inflation calculation
- The base year for WPI calculation is 1993-94
- WPI is available at the end of every week (generally Saturday), for a period of 1 year ended that day
- It has a time lag of 2 weeks (WPI for the year ended two weeks back will be available this week)

Inflation Graph


Inflation Rates (for 12 months ended on given date)

- 2008 Dec 27 - 5.91% (via)
- 2008 Dec 20 - 6.38% (via)
- 2008 Dec 13 - 6.61% (via)
- 2008 Dec 6 - 6.84% (via)
- 2008 Nov 29 - 8.0% (via)
- 2008 Nov 22 - 8.40% (via)
- 2008 Nov 15 - 8.56% (via)
- 2008 Nov 8 - 8.90% (via)
- 2008 Nov 1 - 8.98% (via)
- 2008 Oct 25 - 10.72% (via)
- 2008 Oct 18 - 10.68% (via)
- 2008 Oct 11 - 11.35% (via)
- 2008 Oct 4 - 11.44% (via)
- 2008 Sep 27 - 11.98% (via)
- 2008 Sep 20 - 11.99% (via)
- 2008 Sep 13 - 12.23% (via)
- 2008 Sep 6 - 12.09% (via)
- 2008 Aug 30 - 12.1% (via)
- 2008 Aug 23 - 12.34% (via)
- 2008 Aug 16 - 12.40% (via)
- 2008 Aug 09 - 12.63% (via)
- 2008 Aug 02 - 12.44% (via)
- 2008 Jul 26 - 12.01% (via)
- 2008 Jul 19 - 11.98% (via)
- 2008 Jul 12 - 11.89% (via)
- 2008 Jul 05 - 11.91% (via)
- 2008 Jun 28 - 11.89% (via)
- 2008 Jun 21 - 11.63% (via)
- 2008 Jun 14 - 11.42% (via)
- 2008 Jun 07 - 11.05% (via)
- 2008 May 31 - 8.75% (via)
- 2008 May 24 – 8.24% (via)
- 2008 May 17 – 8.1% (via)
- 2008 May 10 – 7.82% (via)
- 2008 May 03 – 7.83% (via)
- 2008 Apr 26 – 7.61% (via)
- 2008 Apr 19 – 7.57% (via)
- 2008 Apr 12 – 7.33% (via)
- 2008 Apr 05 – 7.14% (via)
- 2008 Mar 29 - 7.41% (via)
- 2008 Mar 22 - 7.0% (via)
- 2008 Mar 15 - 6.68% (via)
- 2008 Mar 08 - 5.92% (via)
- 2008 Mar 01 - 5.11% (via)
- 2008 Feb 23 - 5.02% (via)
- 2008 Feb 16 - 4.89% (via)
- 2008 Feb 09 - 4.35% (via)
- 2008 Feb 02 - 4.07% (via)
- 2008 Jan 26 - 4.11% (via)
- 2008 Jan 19 - 3.93 (via)
- 2008 Jan 12 - 3.83% (via)
- 2008 Jan 05 - 3.79% (via)

Addendum
Reuters maintain this graph on WPI, India.

Related Articles
- Inflation rates of India (2009)
- How is WPI inflation rate calculated in India?
- Commodities and their weight-ages in WPI calculation of India
- Base year and number of commodities used for inflation calculation in India
- The magic of Inflation

Originally posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Wait! Property prices to fall further!

Here's an indepth article about real estate prices in India, from rediff.

Few points from the article,
The recent housing boom was riding on the back of four broad factors -- rising incomes, job security, low property prices and interest rates, and tax benefits associated with buying a house.

A home loan is a person's show of confidence in his income earning capacity over the long term. As the demand for high-ticket loans falls, it also signifies a dip in the confidence in job security and future salary increments.

Says an industry analyst: "Major players in the premium segment have an operating margin of 50-55 per cent. On the contrary, in the mid-segment the margin is around 35 per cent."

"A minimum of 25 per cent correction can be expected. Correction in Tier-II and Tier-III cities will happen a little more. Even cities like Mumbai could see significant price correction," adds Mavani.

So, read on!

The Rupee

Here is an interesting statistic of Rupee, the common name of the currencies used in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Seychelles, Indonesia and Maldives (I’m ignoring the slight variations in names such as Indonesian Rupiah and Maldivian Rufiyaa as they are cognate words of Hindi Rupiya).

1584 million people (the total population of the above countries) use the currency Rupee for their daily transactions; buying day today stuff and all. This is 24% of the world’s population. That means every fourth person living in this world uses a rupee every day.

Country	Population
India	1140
Pakistan	165
Nepal	28
Sri Lanka	19
Mauritius	1
Seychelles	1
Indonesia	229
Maldives	1
Total	1584

*Data extracted from wikipedia

See how famous the Rupee is! And we thought the Rupee was one of those not so famous currencies in the world?

Related Articles
- New Symbol for Indian Rupee

WallStreet crumbles

- Lehman Brothers, files for bankruptcy.
- Bank of America to save Merrill Lynch from the same fate by buying it for $50 billion.
- AIG looking to raise capital; also to avoid the same fate.

Complete coverage by WSJ.

Related Articles
- US Sub-prime Crisis
- Sub-prime woes haunting the US
- Financial tidbits

Indian Industrial growth rate at 7.1%

The Industrial Production Index grew to 7.1% in the month of July far exceeding expectations set from 4 to 6%.

This is indeed great for the economy which has been performing badly for a few months now. As a result of the unexpected growth rate, the Industry demanded a rate cut in interest rates to enhance investments further.

More news here.