Advance tax adjustment: payments for fringe benefits may be treated as advance tax and adjusted or refunded.
Any installment of "advance tax in respect of fringe benefits" paid for the assessment year shall be treated as an advance tax payment for that assessment year and may be adjusted against the assessee's advance tax liability on other income for that year or, if there is no liability, claimed as a refund as advance tax paid for that assessment year.

Custom House Agent licensing: applications require prescribed qualifications, financial proof, security instrument and appearance in licensing examinations.
Invitation for grant of Custom House Agent licences at Cochin requires applicants to apply in Form A, furnish names and addresses of partners/directors and nominate the person to conduct clearances, and meet qualifications through a recognized graduate degree plus professional qualification or prescribed experience or Regulation 8 qualification or retired Group A customs officer status. Financial viability must be evidenced by a bank or state revenue authority certificate of assets above the prescribed threshold; applicants must be Indian citizens and submit bond, surety, security instrument and licence fee prior to grant.

ANF 2-A amendment: no fee for modifications within 90 days; Rs1000 penalty for condoned delays; PAN inclusion free.
The amendment provides that no fee is payable for modification/amendment applications made within 90 days; the Regional Authority issuing the IEC may condone delays on payment of a penalty of Rs.1000 by Demand Draft. No fee is required for inclusion of PAN in an existing IEC.

Line of Credit to Tanzania allows India sourced exports with sourcing, declaration, and timeline conditions under foreign exchange rules.
Exim Bank's Line of Credit to Tanzania finances exports of eligible goods, equipment and consultancy services from India, requiring at least 85 per cent India sourced supply per contract while up to 15 per cent (excluding consultancy) may be procured abroad. The Credit Agreement is effective from January 11, 2010; LC opening and disbursement deadlines are 48 months from scheduled completion for project exports and 72 months from execution for other supplies. Shipments must be declared on GR/SDF forms; no agency commission under the LOC though exporters may remit commissions from their own funds or EEFC balances after realisation, subject to prevailing remittance rules.

Refund of Additional Duty: indemnity bond plus EDI verification allows delegated sanctioning without Commissioner approval.
Where importers cannot produce original Bill of Entry or TR-6 challan, and after the importer's explanation is verified from the EDI system, an indemnity bond may be accepted and the refund claim sanctioned by the Assistant/Deputy Commissioner without seeking the Commissioner's approval; Public Notice No. 43/2008 is modified accordingly and the procedure applies mutatis mutandis to other refund cases.

External Commercial Borrowings refinancing: telecom bidders may use rupee funds initially and refinance under approval route within a specified period.
A one-time end-use relaxation allows telecom bidders to pay for spectrum from Rupee resources and refinance that payment with a long-term External Commercial Borrowing under the approval route within the prescribed period; the designated AD Category I bank must monitor end-use, Indian banks cannot provide guarantees, and all other ECB conditions and reporting requirements continue to apply.

Scheme code requirement: Shipping bills must state the correct reward-scheme code to claim export incentives.
Exports seeking incentives under Chapter 3 of FTP must record the designated EDI scheme code in the Shipping Bill for shipments covered by a reward scheme. The public notice prescribes specific EDI scheme codes mapped to named reward schemes and directs exporters and agents to ensure the Shipping Bill reflects the relevant Scheme Code as a precondition for processing incentive claims and for correct EDI-system handling of export incentive documentation.

Assignment of Show Cause Notice directs adjudication by Commissioner of Customs (Adjudication), Mumbai under Customs Act authority.
The Board, invoking authority under the notification issued under the Customs Act, assigns the Show Cause Notice issued by the Additional Director General, DRI, Ahmedabad in respect of M/s. Madhuri Impex and others to the Commissioner of Customs (Adjudication), Mumbai for adjudication, thereby centralising responsibility for determination of the issues raised in that notice.

Substantial expansion must be of specified goods for area-based exemption to apply; overall capacity increase alone is insufficient.
The area-based exemption applies only to the specified goods named in the notifications, and the condition of substantial expansion must relate to an increase in installed capacity of those specified goods. Expansion confined to non-specified goods or only to overall plant capacity does not satisfy the notification condition and therefore does not confer exemption benefits.

Fee clearance and NOC exemption for specified exchange members removes prior approval requirement for certain broker categories.
The prior requirement for members to obtain regulator fee clearance and a No Objection Certificate (NOC) before specified actions is no longer applicable to trading and clearing members in equity and currency derivatives segments and to cash-segment stock brokers covered by the alternate payment-of-fees regime, including future migrants into that regime; members remaining under the original fee schedule must continue to comply. Exchanges must notify constituents, amend rules and bylaws, and report implementation status to the regulator.

Common Adjudicating Authority appointment directs adjudication of a show cause notice to Commissioner (Adjudication)-I under Customs Act powers.
The Board, exercising powers under relevant Customs notifications, assigns Show Cause Notice F.No. 856(23)LDH/2006/Pt./02-27 dated 31.12.2009 issued by the Additional Director General, DRI, Delhi Zonal Unit, in the matter of M/s Regular Exports, Ludhiana and others, to the Commissioner of Central Excise (Adjudication)-I, New Customs House, New Delhi, for adjudication.

Export obligation reduction: relief allows proportional cuts where sector exports decline, with a revised base-year rule and notification.
The amendment allows proportional reduction of average export obligation for exporters in sectors/product groups whose exports decline relative to the previous year; if decline is continuous, the base year for eligibility and reduction calculation becomes the year after the onset of continuous decline. DGFT will notify eligible sectors to Regional Authorities within seven months of the financial year end, and Regional Authorities shall re-fix the annual average export obligation for the previous year for exporters in those sectors.

SION amendments update non stick aluminium utensil input output norms and conditionally allow specified coating and handle inputs.
Amendments revise the Standard Input Output Norms for SION entries C 23 and C 2046, listing permitted aluminium feedstocks, coating materials, moulding powders, handles and rivets, and updating aluminium content and internal/external coating consumption norms for the export products. Conditional allowances are specified: bakelite moulding powder only if exported with bakelite handles; high temperature/silicon/PTFE coatings only if the product is painted; other components permitted only when exported with corresponding handles or on a net to net basis.

Work allocation: Additional Commissioners assigned specific tax administration, oversight, appellate and enforcement functions across departmental divisions.
Allocation of functions among Additional Commissioners: Addl. Commissioner I to oversee CFC, planning, forms, Special Zone, systems, TPS and GST implementation with periodic border checking and CFC/CRC process checks; Addl. Commissioner II to handle appellate matters above departmental pecuniary threshold, HR, finance, vigilance, law and policy (to be shown to Addl. Commissioner I on return from Commissioner), recovery, facility management, RTI and public relations; Addl. Commissioner III to manage CRC, operations, KCS, economic analysis, refunds, enforcement, research and statistics, internal audit, training, coordination, VAT audit and exporters cell supervision.

Choice to approach DRP confirmed; assessee may object to draft assessment or later appeal through appellate channel.
Clarification that section 144C provides a Dispute Resolution Panel and expressly permits the assessee a choice to either file an objection before the DRP against the draft assessment order or to forgo that option and later file an appeal through the normal appellate channel before the Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals).

Income tax deduction from salaries corrigendum corrects circular reference, increases severe disability deduction and amends example tax computations.
Corrigendum to the Board's circular on Income Tax deduction from salaries for FY 2009-10 corrects the prior circular reference, increases the specified deduction for a dependant with severe disability, and amends numerical entries in illustrative examples including tax-on-income figures, education cess calculations, total tax payable and rounding adjustments.

Currency futures expansion to additional INR pairs enables standardized contracts with VaR based margins and position limits.
SEBI authorises exchanges to offer cash settled Euro INR, Pound INR and Yen INR futures with monthly maturities up to 12 months, trading 9 a.m.-5 p.m., final monthly expiry per FEDAI interbank settlement rules and settlement price derived from RBI reference rates. Initial margin uses a 99% one day VaR with a 3.5 standard deviation scan and currency specific minimums, an Extreme Loss margin is imposed on gross open positions, calendar spread margins allow reduced rupee margins by tenor (with USD INR schedule revised in Annexure IV), and position limits are prescribed at client, trading member and bank levels with exchange alerts and clearing member oversight.

Currency futures expansion: permits Euro INR, GBP INR and JPY INR contracts with specified contract sizes and settlement rules.
Amendment permits Euro INR, GBP INR and JPY INR currency futures alongside USD INR, prescribes minimum contract sizes for each pair, and sets settlement prices using the Reserve Bank's Reference Rates for USD INR and Euro INR and published exchange rates for GBP INR and JPY INR, effective January 19, 2010.

Refund of accumulated CENVAT credit: harmonised nexus test and self certified procedure to expedite exporter refunds.
Refund of accumulated CENVAT credit to exporters must be assessed using the same broad nexus standard as for taking credit under the CENVAT Credit Rules: inputs and input services that, if absent, would adversely affect the quality or efficiency of the exported good or service qualify. A simplified self certification declaration listing export documents, supplier and tax payment details is required; authorised officers may grant refunds on basic verification, with larger claims needing Chartered Accountant certification. Past period credits may be refunded in subsequent quarters and incomplete invoices should be construed liberally where essential details and nexus are demonstrable.

In-person verification: reciprocal recognition between depository participant and stock broker where same entity, with compliance directives.
Reciprocal recognition of in-person verification is permitted between a Depository Participant and a stock broker when they are the same entity or when one is the holding or subsidiary of the other; an in-person verification by a DP will be accepted for a trading account and vice versa. Stock Exchanges and Depositories must notify constituents, amend bye-laws and rules for implementation, and report implementation status to the regulator by the prescribed deadline. The circular is issued under statutory powers to protect investors and regulate the securities market and is effective from its date of issuance.