Infosys, GST - Current Affairs Questions and Answers

ANSWER: Infosys

Explanation:
Infosys has invested in Trifacta, a leading provider of data wrangling software that enables non-technical users to easily transform data for analysis.Infosys Q4 net profit at Rs 3,597 crore, beats estimates for fourth straight quarter

ANSWER: Sanghamitra Bandopadhyaya

Explanation:
The ninth edition of the Infosys prizes was announced on 15th Nov in Bengaluru. Scientists and professionals from the research field were named by a jury which included Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, former Chief Economist Kaushik Basu and geneticist Inder Verma.

Among the winners was Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, director, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata for engineering and computer science.

Her discoveries include genetic marking for breast cancer and the role of white blood cells in Alzheimer's disease.

Ananya J. Kabir, Professor of English at Kings College, London was awarded the prize for humanities.

Upinder Singh Bhalla from National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) got it for life sciences. His contribution includes research on the brain's computational machinery.

Ritabrata Munshi from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, was named for mathematical sciences, and Yamuna Krishnan, from the Department of Chemistry at University of Chicago was chosen for physical sciences for her work in the fledgling field of DNA architecture.

In the category of social sciences, Lawrence Liang, from School of Law, Ambedkar University in Delhi and the co-founder of Alternative Law Forum was named for "creative scholarship" on law and society. The prizes will be given to the six winners on January 10, 2018 in Bengaluru.

Nobel laureate Kip Thorne will felicitate the awardees with prize money worth INR 65 lakh each and a 22-Carat gold medallion.

The Infosys Science Foundation was formed by the trustees of the software company, Infosys, in 2009 to encourage "basic science research."

ANSWER: 13000 crores

Explanation:
Infosys on Nov 17th said share buyback would begin on November 30 and close on December 14.

The IT services major has issued an offer letter for the buyback of shares.

It said that the necessary forms along with the letter would be dispatched to the eligible shareholders whose names appeared on the record date of November 1.

Infosys: Know More

• Industry: IT services, IT consulting
• Founded: 7 July 1981; 36 years ago
• Founders:
  • N. R. Narayana Murthy
  • Nandan Nilekani
  • S. Gopalakrishnan
  • S. D. Shibulal
  • K. Dinesh
  • N. S. Raghavan
• Ashok Arora
• Headquarters: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
• Services: IT, business consulting and outsourcing services

ANSWER: Salil S. Parekh

Explanation:
Infosys, India's No.2 IT services company, named Salil S Parekh as chief executive on Saturday, picking an outsider for the job a second time and handing him the twin challenges of reviving growth and making peace between its founders and board.

Parekh, who will join from consultancy firm Capgemini where he is currently an executive, has been given a 5-year term effective January 2, an Infosys filing to exchanges showed.

UB Pravin Rao who was serving as the interim CEO has been re-designated as chief operating officer from January 2, Infosys said.

Parekh has Master of Engineering degrees in Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Technology degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Former CEO Vishal Sikka announced a sudden exit in August after a protracted public spat with the company's founding executives, led by Narayana Murthy, over strategy and alleged corporate governance lapses.

Sikka, who joined from German software maker SAP SE in 2014, was the first outsider to be appointed CEO of the Bengaluru-headquartered company.

His exit and the prolonged public row led to a reshuffling of the Infosys' board with Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder and former CEO, returning as non-executive chairman.

ANSWER: GST Rate Cuts

Explanation:
The government has set up the National Anti-Profiteering Authority amid reports that some companies, particularly restaurants, are not passing on the benefit of the goods and services tax (GST) rate cuts to consumers.

B N Sharma, additional secretary in the department of revenue, was on 28^th Nov 2017 appointed chairman of the authority.

According to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), Sharma is an IAS officer of the Rajasthan cadre of the 1985 batch. He will have the rank and pay of a Secretary in the government.

The authority under the GST regime has been constituted to ensure that the benefit of lower indirect tax rates are passed on to consumers.

The anti-profiteering measures were recently approved by the Union Cabinet and have been designed to ensure that the full benefits of input tax credits and reduced GST rates on supply of goods or services flow to the consumers.

ANSWER: National Anti-profiteering Authority

Explanation:
The Union Cabinet approved setting up of National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA), an apex body with an overarching mandate under Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime so as to ensure the benefit of tax reaches consumers.

It also approved creation of posts of Chairman and Technical Members of National Anti-profiteering Authority (NAA) under GST regime.

NAA: Know More

• The establishment of the NAA, to be headed by a senior officer of the level of Secretary to the Government of India with four Technical Members from the Centre and/or the States.
• It is one more measure aimed at reassuring consumers that Government is fully committed to take all possible steps to ensure the benefits of implementation of GST in terms of lower prices of the goods and services reach them.
• It may be recalled that effective from midnight of 14th November, 2017 the GST rate has been slashed from 28% to 18% on goods falling under 178 headings.
• There are now only 50 items which attract the GST rate of 28%.
  Likewise, a large number of items have witnessed a reduction in GST rates from 18% to 12% and so on and some goods have been completely exempt from GST.
• The "anti-profiteering" measures enshrined in the GST law provide an institutional mechanism to ensure that the full benefits of input tax credits and reduced GST rates on supply of goods or services flow to the consumers.
• This institutional framework comprises the NAA, a Standing Committee, Screening Committees in every State and the Directorate General of Safeguards in the Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC).

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:
The Goods and Services Tax Council took a slew of decisions during its 23rd meeting in Guwahati on Friday to benefit consumers and businesses alike.

While consumers will stand to benefit from a number of rate cuts, including the tax on restaurants, businesses stand to benefit from a significant easing of compliance norms to do with filing returns.

Up to November 15, when the decisions take effect, the GST system requires businesses to submit at least three forms to file their returns.

The GSTR-1 dealt with the invoice-wise details of supply, GSTR-2 dealt with the receipts of goods, and GSTR-3 was an overall summary derived from the two previous forms.

Now, the GST Council has decided that, in order to ease the compliance burden on businesses, companies would be allowed to only file the GSTR-1 form, up to March 31, 2018.

The Council has set up a committee to look into how to make the GSTR-2 form easier, following which it will be brought back into the system.

The Council also decided to extend the usage of the summary GSTR-3B form, meant to make life easier for those unfamiliar with the filing process, till March 31 from the earlier December 31 deadline.

Companies with a turnover of up to र1.5 crore a year will now be able to file their GSTR-1 forms for each month in a quarterly manner.

Companies earning र1.5 crore or more a year can file their July to October forms by December 31.

Not only did the latest Council meeting ease the deadlines, but it also slashed the penalties for filing late.

For companies with nil tax liability for a particular month, the penalty for delays has been cut to र20 per day from र200 per day. All other companies will have to file a penalty of र50 per day, down from र200 per day.

The GST Council - the apex body for decision making headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley - also decided to impose a uniform GST rate of 5 percent across all categories of standalone restaurants - air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned - but withdraw the benefits of input tax credit (ITC) from such businesses.

Restaurants in starred hotels and outdoor catering services will attract a GST of 18 percent along with ITC benefits.

Composition Scheme

• The annual turnover threshold on the composition scheme will be raised from Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.5 crore.
• This will be done after the law is amended to raise the turnover ceiling for eligibility of composition.
• The law will be amended to raise the ceiling to Rs 2 crore. The limit will be raised immediately after the law amended to Rs 1.5 crore
• Under the scheme, traders, manufacturers and restaurants can pay tax at 1, 2 and 5 percent, respectively.
• The council has also decided to fix a uniform rate of 1 percent for traders and manufacturers.
• The move to widen the turnover threshold is aimed at easing the compliance burden for taxpayers as they will have to file returns only once in a quarter as against monthly returns that needs to be filed by other normal taxpayers.
• However, dealers cannot avail input tax credit, unlike a normal taxpayer.
• Also, traders availing the composition scheme on goods, who also provide small services upto Rs 5 lakh annually, will not be considered ineligible for the scheme.
• GST, billed as the country's biggest indirect tax overhaul, has consolidated a dozen of state and central duties into one single levy.
• ll goods and services have been fitted into four broad slab structure - 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent -along with a cess on luxury and demerit goods such as tobacco, pan masala and aerated drinks.

ANSWER: Both a and c

Explanation:
The twenty-third meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council in Guwahati on Friday is set to tighten the noose on players who, authorities believe, have started splitting their business operations into smaller entities to avoid higher tax liabilities.

The Council is also set to cut tax rates on a large number of product lines.

The Council is expected to further liberalise the Composition Scheme for small businesses and traders to pay a flat and low tax on their turnover.

The annual turnover eligibility threshold is likely to be raised to ₹1.5 crore from the ₹1 crore limit, imposed at the Council's October meeting.

However, the government is concerned about the emergence of a parallel economy despite the restrictions on the Composition Scheme, whose original threshold limit was just ₹75 lakh a year.

Small States may have legitimate concerns, but the restriction on inter-State supplies by businesses under the Composition Scheme could also fuel the prospects for more informal trade outside the tax net.

The GoM has not been able to arrive at a consensus on the question of whether supplies from small firms that are part of the Composition Scheme should translate into input tax credits for larger firms who buy from them.

ANSWER: CAIT

Explanation:
Traders body CAIT's Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal has been nominated to be a part of the government's GST panel.

The panel -- which has been constituted with approval of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley -- includes other members like Araghya Sengupta (Research Director, Centre for Legal Policy), Vinod Jain (CA), Anuj Sahai (CEO of Federation of Indian Exporters Organisation) and Laghu Udyog Bharti President Om Prakash Mittal, CAIT said in a statement.

Gautam Ray, retired chief commissioner of Central Board of Direct Taxes, has been named as the convenor.

The group will discuss possible changes in GST law and its rules and will submit its recommendations to Law Review Committee by November 30.

The first meeting of the group has been convened on November 8 to discuss in-depth the GST law and rules and amendments needed to make compliance easier.

ANSWER: Both a and c

Explanation:
Sanjay Rajagopalan, senior vice-president, Infosys, who headed design and research, has quit the company, according to a posting on his personal page on the networking site, LinkedIn.

He quit Infosys a month ago after working for more than three years with the firm. Earlier, he was a senior vice-president with the German software maker, SAP from 2004 to 2014.

Former CEO & MD of Infosys, Vishal Sikka, had quit the company last month following a spat with the co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.

Infosys: Know More

• Infosys Limited is an Indian multinational corporation that provides business consulting, information technology and outsourcing services.
• It has its headquarters in Bengaluru, India.
• Infosys is the second-largest Indian IT firm by 2016 revenues.
• Founded: 7 July 1981, Pune
• CEO: U. B. Pravin Rao (2017)
• Revenue: 10.21 billion USD (2017)
• Headquarters: Bengaluru
• Founders: N. R. Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani
• Key Subsidiaries: Panaya, Infosys BPO, EdgeVerve, Skava