Goods and Services Tax

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Satyam Vs PWC

A day after Tech Mahindra-acquired Satyam filed a suit against its former Board of Directors, certain employees and Price Waterhouse seeking damages for perpetrating a fraud three years ago, PW officials revealed that they have already filed a similar suit in a Andhra Pradesh court against the software firm on January 7, 2012.
"We have filed for minimum compensation and damages of Rs 100 crore, arising from the carefully and deliberately concealed fraud specifically designed to mislead the auditors by providing deliberately false information and documents," a source said.
The civil suit is against Satyam and its former senior management -- Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju, G Rama Krishna, Vadlamani Srinivas, Srisailam Chetkuru, D Venkatapathi Raju, the person added.
Yesterday in a BSE filing, Mahindra Satyam had said the company filed a suit in city civil court, Hyderabad, seeking damages from PW and former Satyam Board for "inter-alia perpetrating fraud, breach of fiduciary responsibility, obligations and negligence in performance of duties".
Last year, Mahindra Satyam had agreed to pay USD 125 million (over Rs 587 crore) in an out-of-court settlement to end a bunch of class action suits filed in the US.
It has also agreed to pay USD 70 million in a legal settlement with British firm Upaid Systems. Indian tax authorities have also made an I-T claim of about Rs 2,500 crore.
Besides, US Securities Exchange Commission has in April, 2011 imposed a penalty of USD 17.5 million jointly on Satyam Computers, PriceWaterhouse India and affliates auditors for the accounts bungling that went undetected for several years.
Satyam agreed to pay a fine of USD 10 million towards settlement of charges of fraudulently "overstating the company's revenue, income and cash balances by more than USD 1 billion over five years".
SEC asked PriceWaterhouse India to pay USD 6 million in penalty for conducting "deficient audits of the company's financial statements and enabling a massive accounting fraud to go undetected for several years".
Other affiliates, Lovelock & Lewes and Price Waterhouse Bangalore agreed to pay the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) a USD 1.5 million penalty for their violations of PCAOB rules and standards in relation to the Satyam audit engagement.
Satyam was taken over by the Mahindra group in 2009 and rechristened it as Mahindra Satyam, after its founder Ramalinga Raju admitted to an about Rs 14,000-crore accounting scam in 2009.

Last date for Service tax return

Taking note of the fact that assesses are facing problems in electronic filing of service tax, the Finance Ministry has extended the date of submission of half-yearly return for half year ended on 30 September, 2011  till January 20, 2012.


This has been done due to the fact that this is first time of compulsorily online filling of service tax return and many professionals are facing problems regarding the process of filling and use of IT infrastructure provided by department.


The notification reads as follows.(http://servicetax.gov.in/st-notfns-home.htm)

F. No. 137/99/2011 – Service Tax

Government of India 
Ministry of Finance 
Department of Revenue 
Central Board of Excise and Customs,
**********

New Delhi, the 9^th January 2012

ORDER NO 1 /2012 – Service Tax

In exercise of the powers conferred by Rule 7(4) of the Service Tax Rules 1994 read with notification No. 48/2011-Service Tax dated 19^th October 2011, Central Board of Excise and Customs hereby extends the date of submission of half yearly return for the period April 2011 to September 2011, from 6^th January 2012 to 20^th January 2012.

This is being done in view of the fact that assessees are facing problems in electronic filing of returns due to various reasons.

(Deepankar Aron)

Director (Service Tax) 
CBEC, New Delhi

To

Chief Commissioners of Central Excise & Customs (All)

Chief Commissioners of Central Excise (All)

Director General of Systems

Director General of Service Tax

Commissioners of Service Tax (All)

Commissioner (DPPR), Delhi

--x--