The Black & White of Money

-CA Sahil K. Khatri

(The author is Finance Assistant at World Bank)

India is in a phase where its economy is booming, but not at the level that it can. This is because of large amounts of unaccounted money which still prevails in the market, commonly known as BLACK MONEY. In the Indian economy today, it is said that unaccounted money is more in demand than accounted money!!! Why is it so?? The political and administrative machinery has not been able to prevent the rampant spread of black money; one guesstimate of this hidden wealth is Rs 70,000 crore!!!!!

Much of the black money is hidden in the real-estate transactions with a boom in the housing sector and banks only too willing to offer loan at low rates. The sale price declared is mostly lower than that actually paid for. It should not be difficult for the tax authorities to scrutinize the source of funds and the bank accounts in every deal. One of the main reasons of this is a high level of stamp duty, 9% (varies place to place). Therefore people prefer registering their properties at a low value thus they end up paying a low level of stamp duty, resulting in tax evasion. The other reason why black money is thriving in real estate transactions is the high level of capital gains tax. For a person selling the property the tax on the profit he makes is pinching and thus he prefers taking a huge amount of money as unaccounted. Nevertheless, the government should get tough on tax cheats and the thriving property market should be its main target.

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RBI Governor's Speech at WIRC

- Compiled by Nupur Goel

The RBI governor’s speech at Regional Conference of WIRC, provides an insight into what is expected from the CA profession, how the world is looking at the profession and also as a guide to what the approach of CA professionals be in this era. I personally recommend it as a “MUST READ” for all those who are related to the profession. Some of the excerpts of the speech are:

On the Challenges for the Accounting Profession, he says       

“As several stakeholders depend upon the accounting profession, the profession too has to recognize that it has to continue to inspire the trust and confidence of the stakeholders if it has to remain relevant and value adding. In recent years, several challenges have emerged, both at domestic and global levels which, if not effectively addressed, could erode that confidence.  Let me address what, in my view, are some of the key challenges.”

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Ind AS Framework

- Pranav Pareek

Dear Friends,

We are overwhelmed with your response for this blog. We are feeling proud to announce that our blog achieved 500 visitors milestone within just 48 hours of launch. This could not have been possible without your support. We are simply short of words to express our gratitude for the interest shown by you in our initiative. We wish the same for future.

In the journey towards our mission of providing professional updates, we are going to touch various aspects of the recently notified Ind AS (converged with IFRS) in the upcoming weeks. To begin with we have prepared the presentation of “Framework for the preparation & presentation of financial statements in accordance with the Indian Accounting Standards”. Hope you find it useful.

To download file, choose download from the file menu from the links below:

Click here to download Framework Summary

Clickhere to download Framework in detail

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IS INDIA TOO HEADED FOR ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN?

-      Nupur Goel

WHAT TRIGGERED THIS CONCERN?

Tipped as a major force of “BRIC”, India was always referred to as an “Emerging Economy” and a “steadily developing nation”. Especially after 2009, when the global economic meltdown didn’t hamper India’s growth story, the entire world has been looking at India.

·         However, alarm bells started ringing when India’s Industrial Output contracted by 5.1% in October 2011, the lowest since 2009.

·         GDP growth, which was estimated optimistically at 9% in the beginning of 2011, later revised to 7.25%, has infact dipped to 6.9% in the second quarter of 2011-12

·         Inflation has been running at an all-time high of above 9%, since Dec’2010.

·         Rupee has slumped almost 15% against the dollar.

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The Seed of Pro Edge 111

“Proedge” as the name signifies is a gateway to get an edge, above the rest in our professional lives. In a profession like CA one has to not just be updated, but in fact be ahead of the times.

During the period of our studies, most of our time was spent either in office or on cramming the endless syllabus. The weekends, were dedicated to the other “essential activities” like sleeping, catching up with friends and family or watching movies.Although there are plenty of informative resources available at our disposal, such as The Student Journal published monthly by our esteemed institute to simplify various topics for the students or the business news dailies, but due to paucity of time we are mostly unable to make full use of them. And they are simply left adorning our desks or referred to, only to see the major amendments or exam related news.Well, at that point of time, one can afford to be lackadaisical about it, but later on in the professional life, this can prove to be very costly!

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