Respected Professional Colleagues,

Wish you a Very Happy Basant Panchami and Mahashivratri.

Basant Panchami is a festival of flowers, brings new hopes, new aspirations, new zeal and new fervour. Basant Panchami has also brought with it the Budget 2017-18.

In the words of our Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, “it is an Uttam Budget, devoted to strengthening the hands of the poor. The commitment to eliminate corruption and black money is reflected in the budget. It is yet again devoted to the well-being of the villages, farmers and the poor. In many ways, this budget will facilitate the changes that our country is going through. This budget will help small business to become competitive in the global market.”

In any case, Budget 2017-18 has brought the inflation under control. CPI-based inflation declined from 6% in July, 2016 to 3.4% in December, 2016. Economy has moved on a high growth path. India’s Current Account Deficit declined from above 1% of GDP last year to 0.3% of GDP in the first half of 2016-17. FDI grew 36% in first half of fiscal year 2016-17 over first half of 2015-16, despite 5% reduction in global FDI inflows. Foreign exchange reserves have reached
361 billion USD as on 20th January, 2017.

Budget agenda for 2017-18 is “transform, energise and clean India”— TEC India which seeks to transform the quality of governance and quality of life of people, to energise various sections of society, especially the youth and the vulnerable, and to enable them to unleash their true potential and clean the country from the evils of corruption, black money and non-transparent political funding. We the members of AIFTP are committed to stand by the Government for a welfare State where each and every countryman has fresh air to breathe in. The
budgetary amendments are being discussed in the separate article by our AIFTP stalwarts.

It gives me an immense pleasure to inform that many of our suggestions included in the representation sent by AIFTP to the Finance Ministry have been accepted and included in the Budget 2017-18. Our special thanks to Mr. Narayan Jain (Kolkata) who has helped in preparing the representation.

Friends as you are aware, we have started a task of preparing the papers to be sent to Charity Commissioner on war-footing. Shri Vipul Joshi, our worthy Treasurer, has done a great job and prepared the consent letters / representation to be made by each and every NEC Member starting from 1997 till date. Mr. Ravi is sending the letters through e-mail to all the members. It is requested to kindly send the scanned copy of these consent letters duly signed immediately on receipt of the same and also to send through courier so that report may be prepared accordingly, for filing to the Charity Commissioner. I hope that the said task can be completed within a month through your whole hearted support. As Martin Luther King J. R. said “the time is always right to do the right thing”. Therefore, treat this as a right time to send your letters to do the right thing.

Friends, we have also made representation to the Hon’ble Finance Minister for including the names of Advocates and Tax Practitioners in section 53(4) of the Amended Model GST Law. Shri Axat P. Vyas (Jamnagar) and Shri Bhaskar Bhai Patel (Vadodara) have not left any stone unturned for this noble cause.

Friends, North Zone of AIFTP is organising a National Tax Conference at Chandigarh on 25th and 26th February, 2017. This 1st NEC meeting will also be held on 25th February, 2017 at Chandigarh. All the NEC members are invited to this first meeting to have a face-to-face discussion and decide a road map for the year 2017.

Our West Zone members have also organised a workshop at Mumbai on various dates for imparting knowledge on GST, MVAT and Service Tax. Similarly, East Zone and Central Zone are also organising similar workshops in Kolkata and Ratlam respectively. Special thanks to all our members for organising the conferences/seminars to enrich the legal knowledge.

I once again wish all of you A VERY HAPPY BASANT PANCHMI followed by MAHASHIVRATRI and HOLI.

Best Wishes,

Prem Lata Bansal
National President

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