Finance Minister Announcement Key Highlights

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made some announcements on August 23, 2019 related to economy and banking. These are mentioned below:

CSR violations– CSR violations will not be treated as criminal offence and would instead be civil liability.

On or after 1st October, 2019 all notices, summons, orders etc. by the income-tax authorities shall be issued through a centralized computer system and will contain a computer generated unique Document Identification Number.
Any communication issued without computer-generated unique Document Identification Number shall be non est in law.
All old notices to be decided by 1st October 2019 or uploaded again through the system
From 1st October, 2019 all notices to be disposed off within three months from the date of reply.
Government has withdrawn the enhanced surcharge levied by Finance (No. 2) Act, 2019 on long/ short term capital gains arising from transfer of equity shares/units referred.

Government will release Rs. 70,000 Cr., additional lending and liquidity to the tune of ~ Rs 5 Lakh crore by providing upfront Capital to PSBs.
Banks to launch repo-linked loan products
Reduced EMI for housing loans, vehicle and other retail loans by directly linking Repo rate to interest rates.
PSBs to ensure mandated return of loan documents within 15 days of loan closure.
NHB to give additional liquidity support to HFCs of Rs. 20,000 Cr thereby increasing it to Rs. 30,000 Cr.
Partial Credit Guarantee scheme for purchase of pooled assets of NBFCs/ HFCs upto Rs 1 lakh Cr – to be monitored at highest level in each bank.
Surcharge levied on Foreign Portfolio Investment(FPI) and domestic investors rolled back

All pending GST refund due to MSMEs shall be paid within 30 days. In future all GST refunds shall be paid within 60 days from the date of application.
TReDS to use GSTN system in medium term to enhance market for bill discounting for MSMEs.

All the BS IV vehicles purchased till 31.03.2020 shall remain operational for entire period 27 of registration.
The revision of one-time registration fees has been deferred till June 2020.
Any vehicle acquired from now till March 2020 will benefit from an additional 15 per cent depreciation, making a total of 30 per cent depreciation.

Download the announcement in PDF form