Nirmala Sitharaman coronavirus press conference
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced a series of measures that the government has taken to fight the impact of coronavirus outbreak on India's economy and taxpayers. Sitharaman announced the extension of ITR, GST filing deadlines and series of tax relief measures including reduction of digital charges on trade transactions, an extension of Aadhaar-PAN linking deadline, the extension of Vivaad se Vishwaas scheme to June 30 and changes in the insolvency and bankruptcy code among others. Here are the highlights of Sitharaman's relief measures for the coronavirus-torn economy
COVID-19 Economic Fallout: Nirmala Sitharaman relief measures | Highlights
- Finance Minister announces three-month waiver on minimum balance in savings accounts
- Debit cardholders who withdraw cash from any bank ATM can do it free of charge for the next three months: Nirmala Sitharaman
- Economic package to aid those impacted by COVID-19 will be announced soon: FM Nirmala Sitharaman
- The last date to file income tax returns for FY 2018-1 extended till June 30. For delayed payments interest rates reduced from 12% to 9%: FM Nirmala Sitharaman.
- The interest rate on delayed deposit of TDS reduced: FM Nirmala Sitharaman
- Aadhar Card-Pan Card linking last date extended to June 30: Nirmala Sitharaman
- No extra 10% interest will be charged between now and June 30: Nirmala Sitharaman
- Last date of filing GST returns for March, April and May 2020 has been extended to June 30: Nirmala Sitharaman
- For companies that have less than 5 crore turnover, no interest, no late fee, no penalty will be charged. For bigger companies, late fee and penalty will be null and void but interest will be charged at a subsidised interest of 9%: Nirmala Sitharaman
- Under Sabka Vishwas Yojana, people can now pay their dues till June 30, no extra interest will be charged from them: Nirmala Sitharaman
- Customs clearance now an essential service, till June 30th, 2020 it will be working 24/7
- For newly incorporated companies, additional time of 6 more months will be given to file the declaration of commencement of business
- Mandatory requirement of holding board meetings is being relaxed by a period of 60 days, this relaxation is for the next two quarters: Nirmala Sitharaman
- If the situation does not get better before April 30, we will consider suspending, Section 7, Section 9 and Section 10 of the IBC for a period of 6 months: Nirmala Sitharaman.
- Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code default limit has been increased from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1 crore: MoS Finance Anurag Thakur
- Go to the bank only if absolutely necessary: Anurag Thakur
- There shall not be any minimum balance requirement fee in bank accounts: Nirmala Sitharaman
- I would like to say that every attention is being given to the economy. The PM himself is closely monitoring the situation. Multi-layered composition of the task force is already working: Nirmala Sitharaman
