India has 3rd highest number of family-owned businesses: report

New Delhi, Jul 13: The Income Tax Department has facilitated a new functionality for banks and post offices to ascertain TDS applicability rates on cash withdrawal of above Rs 20 lakh in case of a non-filer of the income-tax return and that of above Rs 1 crore in case of a filer of the income-tax return.

In a statement, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said that now banks and post offices have to only enter the PAN of the person who is withdrawing cash for ascertaining the applicable rate of TDS.

So far, more than 53,000 verification requests have been executed successfully on this facility, a statement by the CBDT said.

"CBDT today said that this functionality available as 'Verification of applicability u/s 194N' on www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in since 1st July 2020, is also made available to the Banks through web-services so that the entire process can be automated and be linked to the Bank's internal core banking solution," it said.

On entering PAN by the bank or the post office, a message will be instantly displayed on the departmental utility: "TDS is deductible at the rate of 2 per cent if cash withdrawal exceeds Rs 1 crore", in case the person withdrawing cash is a filer of the income-tax return.

In case the person withdrawing cash is a non-filer of income tax return, the message shown would be: "TDS is deductible at the rate of 2 per cent if cash withdrawal exceeds Rs 20 lakh and at the rate of 5 per cent if it exceeds Rs 1 crore."

The CBDT said that the data on cash withdrawal indicated that huge amount of cash is withdrawn by the persons who have never filed income-tax returns.

To ensure filing of return by these persons and to keep track on cash withdrawals by the non-filers, and to curb black money, the Finance Act, 2020 with effect from July 1, 2020 further amended IT Act to lower threshold of cash withdrawal to Rs 20 lakh for the applicability of this TDS for the non-filers and also mandated TDS at the higher rate of 5 per cent on cash withdrawal exceeding Rs 1 crore by the non-filers.

New Delhi, Jul 19: Indian equities will be driven by a host of factors like corporate earnings, coronavirus cases trend and geo-political developments this week, according to analysts.

Market participants will also keenly watch the progress of monsoon, with experts saying that the farm sector revival will play a key role in lifting the coronavirus-hit economy.

"With no major event, the ongoing earnings season and global cues will continue to dictate the market trend. Besides, the progress of monsoon will also be closely watched," Ajit Mishra, VP - Research, Religare Broking, said.

Globally, the rising coronavirus infections and geo-political tensions have created uncertainty on the economic recovery front.

With India's COVID-19 cases fast approaching the 11 lakh mark, the third-highest behind the US and Brazil, and the death toll nearing 27,000, participants are expected to tread cautiously going forward.

At global level, confirmed COVID-19 cases have crossed 1.4 crore and deaths totalled about 6 lakh.

Markets globally will closely follow developments on the trade and political level between the US and China, according to analysts.

"We would continue witnessing stock-specific action as the earnings season unfold. Though the near-term momentum looks positive, we would advise traders to be cautious, given flaring US-China trade relations, persistent rise in virus cases and implementation of fresh lockdowns in parts of the country," said Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd.

HDFC Bank will remain in focus on Monday after having announced its June quarter earnings on Saturday.

The lender reported 19.6 per cent rise in its standalone net profit at Rs 6,658.62 crore for April-June 2020; while its income rose to Rs 34,453.28 crore during the quarter.

Other major companies to announce their quarterly results this week are Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever Limited, Bajaj Auto and ITC.

"Going ahead market participants will closely track the development related to covid vaccine, the rising infection of coronavirus, development on economic activities, corporate earnings and US-China relationship," said Sumeet Bagadia, Executive Director, Choice Broking.

On weekly basis, the Sensex gathered 425.81 points or 1.16 per cent, and the Nifty gained 133.65 points or 1.24 per cent.

Facebook will introduce a new notification screen on its platform that will warn users if the article they are about to share is over 90 days old, the company announced on Thursday.

“We’re starting to globally roll out a notification screen that will let people know when news articles they are about to share are more than 90 days old,” Facebook wrote in a blog post.

The social media platform had previously introduced a context button in 2018 that provides information about the sources of articles in the News Feed. Building upon that, the new feature will inform users about the timeliness of the article.

“To ensure people have the context they need to make informed decisions about what to share on Facebook, the notification screen will appear when people click the share button on articles older than 90 days, but will allow people to continue sharing if they decide an article is still relevant,” Facebook said.

The social media giant stated that timeliness is important in understanding the context of an article and curbing the spread of misinformation on the platform.

“News publishers, in particular, have expressed concerns about older stories being shared on social media as current news, which can misconstrue the state of current events. Some news publishers have already taken steps to address this on their own websites by prominently labelling older articles to prevent outdated news from being used in misleading ways,” Facebook added.

Apart from this, the platform will also be testing a similar notification screen for information related to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The notification screen will provide information about the source of the link shared in a post if the link is related to information on Covid-19. It will also direct people to its previously introduced Covid-19 information centre for “authoritative” health information, it said.