FDI

The NDA government on Monday announced relaxed foreign direct investment (FDI) norms in single brand retail, civil aviation, airports, pharmaceuticals, animal husbandry and food products. It has allowed up to 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) in defence through the approval route, 100% FDI in food product e-commerce, 100% FDI in greenfield pharma via the automatic route, 100% in browfield pharma - of which 74% will be through automatic route - 100% FDI in scheduled airlines, and up to 49% FDI in airlines through automatic route. While FDI in defence beyond 49% was already allowed through approval route and up to 49% through automatic route, the new norms have done away with the condition of access to ‘state-of-art’ technology in the country for FDI more than 49%.

 CBDT

Central Board of Direct Taxes has notified tax exemption on investments above fair market rate for startups. By virtue of the said notification, startups getting investment from resident angel investors, family offices or funds which are not registered as venture capital funds, will not be taxed even if the investment is made in excess to the fair value. Angel investor is among an entrepreneur's family and friends who invest or injects money in small startups. Presently, funds raised by angel investors are taxed at 30% under the head "income from other sources".

RBI:

The Reserve Bank of India has decided to simplify and rationalise the process of registration of NBFC. The application Form for registration of new NBFCs and the check-list of documents to be submitted have been revised. The new application forms will be simpler and the number of documents required to be submitted will be reduced to a minimum. The number of documents to be submitted by the NBFC applicants has been reduced from existing set of 45 documents to 7-8 in the revised process.

There would be two different types of applications for non-deposit taking NBFCs (NBFC-ND) based on Sources of Funds & Customer Interface as follows:

1. Type I - NBFC-ND not accepting public funds not intending to accept public funds in the future and not having customer interface/ not intending to have customer interface in the future.
2. Type II - NBFC-ND accepting public funds/ intending to accept public funds in the future and/or having customer interface/ intending to have customer interface in the future.

Thanks & Regards,

Meetesh Shiroya