1. Employees’ Provident Fund’s (EPF) which has a corpus of Rs 3,00,000 crore could invest only in bonds of public sector companies, 3 banks and 2 finance companies. In May 2010, the EPFO’s (Employees’ Provident Fund Organization) Central Board of Trustees (CBT) decided to invest in bonds of private companies where the Government has a minimum 26 per cent stake and with the caveat that these corporate bonds need to be AAA rated by at least 2 rating agencies.
2. EPF interest rates were increased from 8.5% to 9.5% in September for the year 2010-2011 as EPFO had Rs 1700 crore of money lying in the suspense account, an account which has all unclaimed PF money.
3. Having failed to get Points of Presence (POP) like banks to push NPS sales, the PFRDA is now expecting fund managers to drive the sales of NPS. The struggle with the NPS continues with the PFRDA failing to take it to the masses as no single entity between PFRDA, PFM, POP, and CRA (Central Recordkeeping Agency) is seen as responsible for sales. Clearly, it’s not going anywhere as of now.
4. Know-Your-Customer (KYC) guidelines are set to be effective for everyone. From 1st January 2011, it is will be mandatory for all retail investors – existing and new to comply to the KYC irrespective of the amount you are investing.
5. The Union Budget 2010 has introduced a new section 80CCF under the Income Tax Act of 1961. Section 80CCF will provide an additional tax deduction, over and above the existing 80C deduction, in respect to investments made in long term infrastructure bonds. This is effective 1st April 2010.
6. SEBI has asked credit rating agencies to formulate a code of conduct and be transparent in its fee structure and rating methods. This is to make sure rating of companies by agencies is done in a fair manner. Agencies will need to reveal the kind of moolah they receive from the companies they rate.
7. The revised Direct Taxes Code (DTC) bill that is going to replace the Income Tax Act, 1961 will be effective April 1st 2012 in India. It is going to enforce changes in income tax slabs; exemptions available under Section 80C will undergo changes; as will income tax benefit on home loans; short term capital gains will fall under a slab structure and much more.
8. A Bill to raise the ceiling of gratuity for employees to Rs10 lakh from Rs3.5 lakh was passed by the Lok Sabha in May 2010.
9. Rating agency CRISIL launched CRISIL Real Estate Star Ratings in 2010 with the aim to provide assessment of projects in select cities in India to improve transparency and benchmarking. The rating will be specific to each city- from ‘City 7-Star’, the highest, to ‘City 1-Star’, the lowest.
10. Effective April 2010, an additional amount in the form of service tax is being collected from buyers on under-construction properties – this means that real estate has become more expensive for you.
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