Current Affairs Update – 4th August, 2016

• Rajya Sabha on 3 August 2016
  passed The Constitution (122nd Amendment) (GST) Bill, 2014 to introduce the
  goods and services tax (GST). The passage of this historic GST Bill has now
  paved the way for the concept of one nation, one tax.
• It will enable both the Centre
  and the States to simultaneously levy the GST, which will subsume all indirect
  taxes currently levied, including excise duties and service tax. It will be
  levied on consumption rather than production.
• The Bill was introduced and
  passed in Lok Sabha in May 2015. However, the bill will now go back to the Lok
  Sabha to incorporate the amendments approved by the Rajya Sabha.

• The GST will have two components
  keeping in mind the federal structure of India: the Central GST (CGST) and the
  State GST (SGST).
• For goods and services that pass
  through several states, or imports, the Centre will levy another tax, the
  Integrated GST (IGST).
• Alcohol for human consumption has
  been kept out of the purview of GST.
• It empowers the centre to impose
  an additional tax of up to 1% on the inter-state supply of goods for two years
  or more. This tax will accrue to states from where the supply originates.
• Initially, GST will not apply to
  (a) petroleum crude, (b) high speed diesel, (c) motor spirit (petrol), (d)
  natural gas and (e) aviation turbine fuel. The GST Council will decide when GST
  will be levied on them.
• Tobacco and tobacco products will
  be subject to GST. The centre may also impose excise duty on tobacco.
• Parliament may provide for
  compensation to states for revenue losses arising out of the implementation of
  GST for up to 5 years, based on the recommendations of the GST Council.

1. Central Excise Duty
2. Additional Duties of Excise and
   Customs
3. Special Additional Duty of
   Customs (SAD)
4. Service Tax
5. Cesses and Surcharges on Supply
   of goods and services

1. VAT
2. Central Sales Tax
3. Purchase Tax
4. Luxury Tax
5. Entry Tax
6. Entertainment Tax
7. Taxes on advertisements,
   lotteries, betting, gambling
8. State Cesses and Surcharges

• The Central Board of Direct Taxes
  (CBDT) has entered into an advance pricing agreement (APA) with an Indian
  subsidiary of a Japanese trading company to foster a non-adversarial tax
  regime.
• “Signing of this bilateral
  APA is an important step towards ascertaining certainty in transfer pricing
  matters of multinational company cases and dispute resolution,” said a
  statement issued here by the Finance Ministry under which the CBDT functions.
• The agreement was signed on
  August 2.
• The scheme endeavours to provide
  certainty to taxpayers in the domain of transfer pricing by specifying the
  methods of pricing and setting the prices of international transactions in
  advance.
• Overall, it is fourth bilateral
  APA signed by the CBDT. The APA scheme was introduced in the Income Tax Act in
  2012.
• The CBDT expects more APAs to be
  signed in the near future, it said.

• Online legal documentation
  startup LegalDesk.com on 3 August 2016 launched the electronic signing feature
  eSignDesk that allows people to sign documents digitally from remote places.
• With over a billion Aadhaar
  cardholders and about 25 million transactions taking place every quarter,
  digital signatures are expected to save time, money and paper.

• Built on the Aadhaar platform,
  eSign is an initiative of the Union Government and meant to save money and time
  for citizens.
• Its users need to have a
  registered mobile number associated with the Aadhaar card.
• The service will be available on
  www.eSignDesk.com and will be offered for free to the first 1000 users.
• The documents signed
  electronically will be legally valid in the country.
• The e-signature deters fraud to a
  large extent as it cannot be replicated or forged, and the content of the
  document cannot be tampered with.

• Karnataka State Irrigation
  Department on Sunday will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Indian
  Space Research Organisation for setting up Telangana Water Resources
  Information System.
• The system will keep eye from sky
  on state’s water resources and ISRO will update the system with new satellite
  imagery of all water bodies every fortnight.
• According to an official release,
  the new system will be set up by ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre.

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• The seventh meeting of South
  Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Immigration Authorities was
  held on 2 August 2016 in Islamabad, Pakistan.
• Usman A. Bajwa, Pakistan’s
  Director General Immigration and Passports, chaired the meeting.
• The meeting aimed at formulating
  recommendations to be presented in the meetings of Home Secretaries and
  Interior Ministers meetings.

• The advisory committee of the
  Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award on 30 July 2016 decided that the 23rd
  Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award will be given to Shubha Mudgal.
• Mudgal will be honoured for her
  outstanding contribution towards the promotion of communal harmony, peace and
  goodwill.
• The singer will be presented with
  the Award on 20 August 2016 at Jawahar Bhawan Auditorium.

• United World Wrestling (UWW) on 3
  August 2016 cleared wrestler Narsingh Yadav’s name for participation in the
  2016 Rio Olympics. He will be participating in the 74kg weight category of the
  sport.
• Reports say fate of the
  26-year-old grappler still lies in the hands of the World Anti-Doping Agency
  (WADA), which will take decision whether he is eligible to take part in the
  Olympic.
• After studying the case, WADA may
  appeal against a decision of Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel or Appeals Panel of
  any of its member countries to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) within
  21 days. CAS is specifically constituted to render decisions quickly during the
  Olympics.