Current affairs- May 4, 2016
Lok Sabha passes CAF Bill
Lok Sabha has unanimously passed the much awaited Compensatory
Afforestation Fund (CAF) Bill, 2015.- The Bill aims to
ensure expeditious utilization of accumulated unspent amounts to the tune
of around Rs 40,000 crore for increasing forest cover in India. The amount
has been lying idle with an ad-hoc central body for over 10 years.
Highlights of the bill:
- The Bill establishes the National Compensatory Afforestation Fund under the Public Account of India, and a State Compensatory Afforestation Fund under the Public Account of each state.
- These Funds will
receive payments for: (i) compensatory afforestation, (ii) net present
value of forest (NPV), and (iii) other project specific payments. The
National Fund will receive 10% of these funds, and the State Funds will
receive the remaining 90%.
- These Funds will
be primarily spent on afforestation to compensate for loss of forest
cover, regeneration of forest ecosystem, wildlife protection and
infrastructure development.
- The Bill also
establishes the National and State Compensatory Afforestation Fund
Management and Planning Authorities to manage the National and State
Funds.
UN selects Mexican diplomat Patricia Espinosa as
next chief of its climate change body
Former Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa has been nominated to be the new U.N. climate chief, helping to
bolster a 2015 Paris Agreement to shift the world economy from fossil fuels.
- The appointment
needs to be approved by an 11-member U.N. bureau, whose members represent
groups of governments worldwide and is now led by French Environment
Minister Segolene Royal.
Background:
The UNFCCC has been in existence since 1994. With 196 countries
and European Union (EU) as its members, it has near universal membership. It is
the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been
ratified by 192 of the UNFCCC Parties. The ultimate objective is to stabilize
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent
dangerous human interference with the climate system. The framework set no binding limits
on greenhouse gas emissions for individual countries and
contains no enforcement mechanisms.
Tips are not salary income, still taxable: SC
In a major relief to the hospitality industry, the Supreme Court
has held that tips paid by customers to staff for availing services in restaurants
do not constitute salary, and therefore, the employer is not liable to deduct
tax at source on such payments under income-tax laws.
- However, the court
observed that such tips at the hands of employees would be chargeable as
“income from other sources”.
- With this, the Supreme
Court has set aside the Delhi High Court’s May 2011 judgment, which held
that the receipt of such tips constitutes income at the hands of the
recipient and is chargeable to income tax under the head “salary” under
Section 15 of the Income-Tax Act.
What else the Court said?
According to the court, the employer merely acts in a fiduciary
capacity as a trustee for payments that are received from customers, which they
disburse to their employees for services rendered to the customer. The
employer, therefore, has no obligation to withhold tax on such payments made to
employees, regardless of whether the tips are received directly in cash, or
collected through credit card by employer, and subsequently disbursed to
employees.
Background:
The Delhi High Court in 2011 had ruled that when a tip is paid by
way of a credit card by a customer—since such a tip goes into the account of
the employer, after which it is distributed to employees—the receipt of such
money from the employer would amount to “salary” within the extended definition
contained in Section 17 of the Act. However, the High Court had also held that
when tips are received by employees directly in cash, the employer has no role
to play and would therefore be outside the purview of Section 192 of the Act.
Challenging the High Court judgment before the Supreme Court, ITC
and others had argued that tips by customers are paid out of their own volition
and discretion, and are in the nature of gratuitous payment made directly to
the waiters/staff as a reward in appreciation of services rendered to them. ITC
further added that employees cannot claim any vested right thereto, since the
employer neither pays nor is bound to pay any amount to the employee as a tip.
Facts
- After the landmark Supreme
Court judgment in April 2014 recognising transgender as third gender, the
Delhi government has now decided to introduce the ‘transgender’
category in forms for registration of birth and
death certificates. In the first move perhaps to recognise the third
gender on official papers, the Delhi government has issued a notification
asking all Registrar offices to duly make the changes in the forms.
