E-Governance 14/9/09

ONLINE REGISTRATION OF COS GETS E-STAMP
Souvik Sanyal, New Delhi, September 14, 2009
The Economic Times

Entrepreneurs can now pay stamp duty sitting anywhere in India electronically by logging on to the corporate affairs ministry’s website.

This removes the last hurdle for electronic incorporation of new companies without visiting a government office.

The on-line payment facility, which does away with the need to buy, paste and submit physical stamps with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), is now available in 22 states. The government expects to extend it to the rest of the nation soon.

Electronic payment of stamp duty for setting up a company, which has been introduced on September 13, 2009, will become compulsory from January 1, 2010, an order issued by the ministry stated.

The twenty-two state governments, which authorised the central government to electronically collect stamp duty on their behalf, will be paid back the amount by the Centre.

Collection of stamp duty falls under the exclusive domain of state governments. The states which are yet to authorise the Centre on collection of stamp duty on their behalf and where the physical stamping procedures will continue, include Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Goa, Jammu & Kashmir, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep, Puducherry, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura.

The facility of e-stamping is being extended through the web portal of the ministry of corporate affairs. “The government’s aim is to make all transactions faster by improving service delivery and making the office of the RoC paper-less,” a senior official in the ministry said.

With the facility already available, the ministry has given a transition period of three and a half months till the end of 2009, by which time, companies can exhaust their already collected stamps, said the official.

While the Central government expects to get the authorisation from the remaining 12 states and UT’s before January 1, 2010, the states that do not authorise the Centre by then will continue to collect stamp duty through the physical mode.

The ministry, which has a computerised network called the MCA-21, already enables e-filing of other statutory documents required under the Companies Act.

 

TAXMAN BRINGS IN SOFTWARE FOR POST-RETURNS SCRUTINY
New Delhi, September 14, 2009
The Economic Times  Business Standard  

The Income Tax department is deploying a new software solution to scrutinise the accounts of companies once the firms have filed their returns.

The software solution, called CAIT, will help match account books with the returns filed by the respective companies and find out if there is any discrepencies, a key official source said here.

The installation of the software is part of the ongoing efforts by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to modernise its scrutiny system to catch the defaulters.

The CBDT has already installed the 360-degree profiling solution, which assesses expenditure and investments of assessees from various sources and throws up alerts to income tax officers where there could be a possibility of tax default.

This 360-degree profiling, technically called IT-DMS software, throws up cases for scrutiny before returns are filed and the CAIT will do so after submission of returns by companies, the source added.

CAIT will do away with the manual scrutiny of accounts. "Over the years, more and more assessees have taken to maintaining their books of account on computer. The accounts have become more voluminous and complex. However, methods of scrutiny by the Income Tax Department have remained manual," he said.

 

MCD PURCHASING IPR OF E-TENDERING SOFTWARE FROM WIPRO
New Delhi, September 14, 2009
The Economic Times  The Times of India  

Giving a boost to its ambitious e-governance programme, the MCD is planning to purchase intellectual property rights of an e-tendering software from IT giant Wipro.

The software was being used by the Engineering Department of the civic agency under a three-year contract with the company, the period of which has now ended.

The software firm was providing the e-tendering system on application service provider (ASP) model under which it had retained its ownership and ensured maintenance and support services. With the MCD purchasing the "source code" of the system, the IPR will shift to the civic body.

"We are using the e-tendering system successfully since 2005. The MCD used to pay charges to Wipro per tender and the company ensured the maintenance of the system," a senior MCD official said.

The civic body will now purchase the source code or IPR of the system at a cost of Rs 60 lakh.

"Procuring of the source code will be beneficial to the MCD. The system is successful and it has a scope of integrating with the e-governance programme," the official said.