196 companies face penal action for CSR violations: Government
NEW DELHI: The corporate affairs ministry has given permission for penal action against 196 companies for violating CSR norms in 2014-15 fiscal, according to union minister P P Chaudhary. Under the Companies Act, 2013, certain class of profitable entities are required to shell out at least two per cent of their three-year annual average net profit towards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. "Till date, the ministry has accorded permission for penal action against 196 companies for financial year 2014- 15," Chaudhary, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs, said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha today. A total of 5,870 companies shelled out Rs 9,553.72 crore towards CSR activities in 2014- 15 while the number of such firms and total money spent rose in the next fiscal. In 2015-16, as many as 7,983 companies incurred CSR expenditure of Rs 13,625.24 crore, as per official data. As per the Act, in case a company fails to spend the specified amount, then its board has to provide the specific reasons for the same in the board report."The number of companies required to make CSR expenditure and who failed to spend any amount for the purpose for 2014-15 and 2015-16 are 8,924 and 10,547 respectively," the minister said in a separate reply. Chaudhary, separately, said action has been initiated against as many as 83 companies in the first nine months of the ongoing financial year for not resolving investors' grievances. Besides, action has been taken against 145 firms in 2016 -17 and 89 in 2015-16, as per the investors' grievance data maintained by the corporate affairs ministry. Companies Act mandates that every company having more than 1,000 shareholders, debenture holders, deposit holders and any other security holders shall constitute a 'Stakeholders Relationship Committee' to consider and resolve the grievances of the firm's security holders. Besides, markets regulator Sebi has also taken action against such companies.
Source:- Economic Times
NEW DELHI: The income tax department will seek restoration of deregistered companies that have pending income tax liabilities. The Central Board of Direct Taxes has asked assessing officers to request the restoration of companies "struck off" so that the government can recover tax dues. "Board has decided that request/appeal for restoration of name of the struck off company with retrospective date from the date of being 'struck off" shall be made by the income tax department," it said in a letter. The ministry of corporate affairs deregistered 2.24 lakh companies under section 248 (5) of the Companies Act for not complying with regulatory filings. The department directed its officials to emphasise that restoration is being sought to protect government revenue and in some cases could become time barred. It told the officials to make urgent restoration requests to the appropriate registrar of companies and even sent apro forma form. "Though section 248 is quite clear that the right of the revenue department to recover tax arrears is not impacted in any manner by such 'strike off ' and the companies shall remain liable to pay their tax arrears, this non-existence raised questions on tenability of the income-tax proceedings against these companies," said Rakesh Nangia, managing partner at Nangia & Co. The CBDT has also asked tax officials to consider on a case-to-case basis filing an appeal with the National Company Law Tribunal for revival of companies with pending income tax issues.The CBDT laid out cases where revival requests should be considered. These include cases where proceedings were already under progress, where proceedings were being contemplated, where department appeals were pending, where penalty proceedings already initiated were pending or where prosecution proceedings had been initiated.
Source:- Economic Times