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Congress leader Vivek K Tankha on Thursday in the Rajya Sabha demanded legal protection for chartered accountants and called for measures to break the dominance of four multinational audit firms in India, saying domestic CA firms need government support to compete. Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, the Madhya Pradesh MP said Deloitte, PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), E&Y (Ernst & Young), and KPMG have mandates worth more than Rs 10,000 crore each, while nearly one lakh Indian CA firms have businesses that never cross Rs 10 crore. "I am voicing the concern of nearly five lakh chartered accountants who live in this country and work, and also more than four lakh who live abroad. They are the gatekeepers of our businesses. They are the crisis managers of our operationalised government policies," Tankha said. Highlighting the critical role CAs played in implementing policies like demonetisation and GST, he said: "The ministers may announce, but it is the CAs who .
Doubling standard deduction to Rs 1 lakh, increasing tax break on interest paid on housing loan and rationalisation of capital gains tax regime are some of the expectations that consultancy firm KPMG has from the Budget 2024-25 to be unveiled on July 23 in Parliament. There has been a significant rise in medical expenses, fuel costs and overall inflation. Keeping in mind the increase in personal expenditure it is popularly expected to enhance the standard deduction to Rs 1 lakh from the existing limit of Rs 50,000, KPMG said in a note. With the objective to have more net disposable income which can either be spent on consumer goods or channelised as savings, it is a popular expectation that the basic tax exemption limit under the default new tax regime be increased to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 3 lakh, it said. With regard to housing loans, it said there is mounting pressure on the real estate sector with recent hikes in interest rates and regulatory reforms. To alleviate these challenges a