CAs allowed to do audit work in US
New Delhi: The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has removed the restrictions on practising chartered accountants or accountancy firms on taking up audit or certification work in the US.

This would also hold for members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

ICAI said it does not want an Indian chartered accountant who is also an AICPA member to lose any advantage. However, ICAI said in cases where an Indian chartered accountancy firm is involved in certification or audit work it would have to be made clear in the audit certificate that the firm was registered with the ICAI.

As per the existing regulations of ICAI, an Indian chartered accountant or a chartered accountancy firm registered with the institute cannot take up attestation functions for any US-related work even if they are members of the AICPA.

This is because ICAI has so far not allowed its practicing members to use any other qualification or description for attestation functions.

With this, Indian chartered accountants and accountancy firms with AICPA membership can look forward to getting mandates for the US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) compliance certification, which is required for raising resources from the US markets.
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OneIndia tariffs likely from this week
New Delhi: Bharat Sanchar Nigam is set to announce its OneIndia tariffs this week. The new tariff plan was called off due to last minute differences with the Government on the proposed tariff scheme last week.

Encouragingly, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is also close to announcing the revised access deficit charges. The new ADC regime proposes to move to a revenue sharing arrangement instead of the existing norm of levying the charge on a per minute basis. ADC on long-distance charges was one of the reasons why the operators were expressing their inability to comply with OneIndia call tariff proposed by the communications ministry.

ADC is the levy charged on operators for funding unviable telephone connections in rural India.

At present, the charges vary up to Rs1.10 per minute, which makes it difficult for any operator to drop STD rates to Re1. The new regime may propose a fixed revenue share like the 5 per cent share currently being paid by the operators to fund universal services obligation. Such a move will pave the way for lowering the long-distance charges further.

On the international long-distance sector, TRAI is likely to retain the current model of charging ADC on a per minute basis. While at present the ADC rates on ISD calls vary between Rs2.50 a minute and Rs3.25 a minute for outgoing and incoming calls, TRAI is likely to bring down the charges by almost a rupee dealing a blow to the grey market in the ISD segment, which has been thriving due to the high arbitrage charges.
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Left wants airport reforms only for Delhi, Mumbai
New Delhi: The Kolkata and Chennai airports may be dropped from the reforms list to appease the Left Front and employees' unions, which ate the humble pie in calling off their agitation on Friday.

Instead of the privatisation model being followed for the airports in Delhi and Mumbai - which triggered the agitation - the government may adopt a model of public-private partnership for the other two airports. Another option is to ask the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to undertake the modernization that it has been asking for.

Kolkata and Chennai are in the long list of airports - which also has 35 non-metro ones - that the government plans to modernise in phases.
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Maharashtra to slash stamp duty on loans by 15 basis points
Mumbai: The Maharashtra government agreeing to demands by banks and financial institutions, has decided to reduce stamp duty on loans to 15 basis points from 25 basis points. One basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.

The state finance minister is expected to announce the cut in his budget speech.

The state government had imposed 0.25 per cent duty on loans last year, which was strongly opposed by the Indian Bank Association (IBA), a premier bankers' body.

The Association pointed out that Maharashtra's share in banking advances is more than 25 per cent, and if such a duty is imposed corporates would prefer other states for loan transactions and Maharashtra would lose revenues.

The state has also agreed to cap the loan size to Rs5 lakh for the calculation of the stamp duty.
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