A number of goods such as cosmetics, shaving creams, shampoo, toothpaste, soap, plastics, paints and some consumer durables could become cheaper under the proposed goods and services tax (GST) regime as most items are likely to be subject to the rate of 18% rather than the higher one of 28%. India is likely to rely on the effective tax rate currently applicable on a commodity to get a fix on the GST slab, said a government official, allowing most goods to make it to the lower bracket.

The government has already taken several steps to promote digital payments and several other schemes launched by the government have paved the way to save more money.

The government is pushing for rolling out goods and services tax (GST) from July 1 and industry has been given sufficient time to the rules, law and basic structure.

The deadline for depositing and exchanging scrapped Rs 500 and 1000 notes for Indian citizens who were abroad during November-December 2016 will end today, according to guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank India.

The four Bills that would operationalise the rolling out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) were tabled in the Lok Sabha on Monday amid opposition protests that the Bills were not listed in the day’s agenda before hand.

The Department of Telecommunications on Friday issued a notification, directing all phone service providers to reverify details for all existing subscribers through Aadhaar-based e-KYC (Know Your Customer) process. The move will impact more than 100 crore mobile phone subscribers in the country, 90% of whom are prepaid card users. The process is likely to cost about ₹2,500 crore which will be borne by the service providers, according to industry body COAI.

Petroleum products would, however, continue to be taxed as per the current taxation regime until the GST Council agrees on applying GST to these products. However, GST will apply on petroleum only after all the states, through the GST Council, is agreed on it and till then states will continue to tax petroleum products.

It’s hard time for affordable housing. In the Delhi-NCR region alone, over one lakh apartments are likely to be built in this segment in the next couple of years, with builders betting on a spurt in demand following sops announced by the government in this year’s Budget. Supertech, Signature Global, Gaursons, Raheja Developers, BDI, Tulip and many others are planning to launch residential projects in this category.

Five cities across the country with diverse geographical and climatic conditions will be the first to start using plastic bank notes of rs.10 denomination, with the Centre approving a field trial. The notes are considered to be cleaner than paper currency, will last longer and are difficult to counterfeit.