Reporting obligations for liaison and branch offices: AACs with audited accounts must be furnished to tax authorities and endorsed on renewal.
Liaison and branch offices of foreign entities must furnish Annual Activity Certificates to the Director General of Income Tax (International Taxation) accompanied by audited financial statements, including a receipt and payment account. On renewal of LO permissions, Authorised Dealer Category I banks should endorse a copy of each renewal to the DGIT (International Taxation). Authorised Dealer Category I banks are responsible for notifying their constituents and ensuring compliance with these reporting requirements, which are issued under foreign exchange regulatory powers without prejudice to other statutory permissions.

External Commercial Borrowings policy relaxed for spectrum bidders allowing refinancing of rupee loans and bridge finance under automatic route.
Successful 2G spectrum bidders may refinance rupee loans used for upfront payments with long term ECBs under the automatic route if raised within eighteen months, with the designated AD Category I bank evidencing payment and monitoring end use; short term bridge finance in foreign currency is permitted under the automatic route replaceable by long term ECB within eighteen months subject to ECB guidelines; ECB from an ultimate parent is allowed without a maximum liability equity ratio provided the lender holds at least twenty five percent paid up equity. Other ECB parameters remain unchanged.

Know Your Customer requirements: Container lessors must verify exporters and payments before delivery, with documented KYC checks.
Shipping lines, container lines, their agents/sub-agents and freight forwarders must implement Know Your Customer (KYC) norms before leasing or renting containers for stuffing of export cargo, maintaining self attested records including photo ID, address proof, Import Export Code, a banker's certificate, PAN and prior year tax returns, and VAT/sales tax registration where applicable; payments must be by account payee cheque or internet banking and IEC details verified prior to delivery.

Customs Area declaration enables supervised examination and sealing of full-container import and export cargo at designated CFS.
Declaration that the premises of M/s. L&T Shipbuilding Ltd., Kattupalli, are designated as a Customs Area to function as a Container Freight Station for examination and clearance of imported full-container load cargo from the minor port, and for examination, stuffing/loading and sealing of export cargo under Customs supervision, excluding less-than-container-load cargo and passengers' unaccompanied baggage; procedures for handling import FCL and export cargo will be notified separately.

Custodian appointment under Customs Act: L&T Shipbuilding designated to hold imported and export cargo pending clearance or transshipment.
The premises of M/s. L & T Shipbuilding Ltd., Kattupalli, are appointed as CUSTODIAN under Section 45(1) of the Customs Act to hold imported containerized goods and export cargo until cleared for home consumption, warehoused, or transshipped; the custodian must comply with Section 45(2), HACCR, 2009, and related rules, regulations and instructions.

Review Committee authorization flaws can invalidate departmental appeals; ensure proper meeting, dated signatures and demonstrated application of mind.
Review by a committee of two Commissioners requires two stages: formation of an opinion that the appellate order is not legal or proper and issuance of a review-cum-authorization directing a named officer to file an appeal. Recurrent judicially-noted defects include defective or missing authorizations (undated, singly signed, names absent), lack of application of mind in file notings, and absence of any recorded meeting or concurrence. Committees must ensure meaningful notings, separate valid authorization orders, strict compliance with signature and dating formalities, and may use video conferencing to record deliberations.

Outsourcing of support staff to ensure assessing officers have secretarial assistance; departments must provide staff and report manpower details.
Every assessing officer must be provided adequate secretarial assistance and other office help either through regular departmental staff or by outsourcing under Rule 178 of GFR 2005; Commissionerates should utilise the sanctioned budget for such expenses and requisition additional funds from DIT (Expenditure Budget) under DG (Logistics) if needed, with actions completed by the end of the month. Chief Commissioners must submit detailed manpower information in the prescribed format covering numbers of assessing officers and the allocation of secretarial assistants, DEOs and MTS as regular employees and through outsourcing.

Extension of filing deadline for non XBRL financial e forms allows companies with later AGMs to file without extra fees.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs extended the due date for filing e Forms 23AC (Non XBRL) and 23ACA (Non XBRL) under Schedule VI for accounting years commencing on or after 1.4.2011 to 24.11.2012 for companies holding AGMs or whose AGM due date falls on or after 21.09.2012, permitting filing without additional fees up to 24.11.2012 or the statutory due date, whichever is later.

Co developer approvals in SEZs require lease disclosure and preserve taxability review by the Assessing Officer.
BoA prescribed processing timelines and approved multiple SEZ actions-co developer recognitions, area additions/denotifications and re orientations-subject to conditions. Co developer approvals require lease/developer agreements detailing financial arrangements and preserve the Assessing Officer's right to examine taxability under SEZ and Income Tax law. Area changes and denotifications are approved only upon DC certification of contiguity and refund/non availment of tax/duty benefits and State concurrence. Extensions of formal approvals and LoPs beyond prescribed years are discretionary, granted only after demonstrable progress and subject to limited, timebound extensions.

Service tax accounting codes updated: new minor head and penalties sub heads established with service wise code allotments.
The notice replaces the prior Minor Head for Other Taxable Services with a new Minor Head under Major Head 0044-Service Tax and inserts a Penalties Sub Head in each Minor Head; accounting codes have been allotted for the new Minor Head and penalties Sub Heads, with a detailed service wise list appended and unlisted services to be booked under the new Other Taxable Services code.

SLB roll-over facility allows extension of lending and borrowing; liquid index ETFs added under defined liquidity criteria.
A roll-over facility is introduced into the SLB framework allowing lenders and borrowers to extend positions within the same SLB session, prohibiting netting between a client's borrowed and lent positions and limiting roll-overs to the original contract plus two rollovers. Liquid Index ETFs are made eligible for SLB subject to liquidity criteria-trading frequency and impact cost-and ETF position limits are to be based on assets under management; exchanges and depositories must implement systems and amend rules accordingly.

TED refund claim by recipient permitted on supplier disclaimer, subject to prescribed declarations, ANF 8 application and annexure formats.
Amendment permits recipient of goods to claim TED refund on production of a supplier's disclaimer in Annexure IV of ANF 8; applications for drawback/TED must be made in ANF 8 by supplier offices with branch/manufacturing units furnishing self certified RCMC, recipients must furnish a non availment of CENVAT declaration in Annexure II, and either supplier or recipient may claim TED refund provided the prescribed disclaimer or declaration is produced.

Warehouse storage under Section 49 enables de stuffing into domestic containers under Customs supervision to reduce import costs.
Importers may avail the statutory warehouse storage facility under Section 49 of the Customs Act, 1962 and may de stuff foreign containers at CFSs/ICDs, transferring goods into empty domestic containers or storing them in customs warehouses under Customs supervision pending lawful clearance; Customs formations must issue Standing Orders, public notices or instructions to notify officers and trade of this option to promote import cost efficiency.

Discontinuation of mini index derivatives: fresh contracts prohibited while existing series may trade until expiry with market notice.
SEBI directs the discontinue of mini derivative contracts on Index (Sensex and Nifty) by prohibiting issuance of fresh mini derivative contracts; existing unexpired contracts may trade until expiry and new strikes may be introduced in existing contract months. Exchanges must give due market notice and take necessary action to implement the directive. The circular invokes the Board's regulatory powers to protect investor interests and regulate the securities market.

Special Currency Basket value revised, requiring authorised dealer banks to implement the updated rupee valuation and notify constituents.
The Reserve Bank notifies a revised rupee value for the Special Currency Basket, superseding the earlier indicated value, and fixes the revised valuation with effect from a specified date. Category I Authorised Dealer banks are directed to implement the revised valuation for settlements under the deferred payment arrangements and to inform their constituents. The directions are issued under sections 10(4) and 11(1) of FEMA and do not prejudice other legal permissions or approvals.

Repatriation period liberalisation allows twelve month realisation of export proceeds, extending the compliance window for exporters and banks.
The circular extends an administrative liberalisation allowing AD Category I banks to permit realization and repatriation of the full export value of goods or software within a twelve month period from the date of export for a specified temporary window, leaves SEZ and external warehouse export provisions unchanged, and directs banks to inform constituents while noting that the directions are issued under statutory foreign exchange powers and do not affect other legal permissions or approvals.

Service tax accounting codes restored; taxpayers must choose specific service descriptions and amend registrations online where needed.
The Circular restores service-specific accounting codes under the Negative List approach and supplies an annexure of 120 service descriptions with corresponding accounting codes for tax collection, interest, penalties and a field-use-only deduct-refunds sub-head; taxpayers must amend "All Taxable Services" registrations online to select appropriate descriptions, new registrants must choose from the list, and field formations will guide taxpayers and display codes in Form ST-1/ST-2.

Double-payment refund process requires administrative verification and a formal claim to recover excess customs duty.
Excess payments transferred to the Government can be refunded only by formal claim under Section 27 of the Customs Act, 1962, filed with the Deputy/Assistant Commissioner, CRC I, JNCH. The claimant must submit a bank letter confirming debit and credit to government account, the cyber receipt, and the bank scroll attested with Bill of Entry and challan details. The proper officer will verify PAO/e PAO records, ICEGATE challan enquiry, ICES transaction data and bank confirmation before processing and sanctioning the refund.

Credit of exit load to scheme: exit loads must be credited to the scheme, altering scheme accounting and disclosure practices.
Regulatory amendments modify mutual fund prudential limits, expense treatment, valuation and disclosure. Sectoral exposure for debt schemes remains capped at 30% of net assets, with an additional up to 10% allowance solely for NHB-registered, AA-rated HFCs subject to an overall HFC exposure cap. Brokerage and transaction costs for trade execution may be capitalised within prescribed per-transaction caps and otherwise charged only within the TER; excess costs must be borne by the AMC, trustee or sponsor. NAV must be calculated and published daily; half-yearly unaudited results must be hosted and advertised; and exit loads charged after commencement must be credited to the scheme.

Declaration requirement for cashew kernels mandates full product details on Bills of Entry, non compliance may attract penalty.
Imports of cashew kernels under tariff headings 080132 and subheadings must include a declaration of full description in Bills of Entry, specifying processing characteristics, product type, grade, size (count/454 g), colour, origin and any other importer parameters; the unit code from the Customs Tariff Act First Schedule must be recorded in the quantity field; incomplete descriptions or incorrect unit codes will be examined on first check and assessed after amendment, and amendments for non compliance will attract customs penalty provisions under Section 117 of the Customs Act, 1962.