New Delhi, Aug 23 (KNN) Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held a press conference to address various issues with regard to economic slowdown and measures to be taken to tackle the same.

The government will amend the MSME Act to have a single definition for MSMEs. These changes in the act will be taken up by the Cabinet soon. A single definition would serve the MSMEs now but not on the basis of turnover but also on things like plant machinery, Sitharaman said.

“All the pending GST refunds shall be paid within 30 days. Everything which is pending from years to today will be sorted out within 30 days. For now, any future GST refunds that will arise from now will be sorted within 60 days after it arises”, Sitharaman said.  

To make the process easy for the MSMEs the Minister said, “There will be single water and air clearances for MSMEs, single consent to establish a factory for MSMEs so it is actually moving towards greater simplification and doing of business. Online tracking of the loan application by the customers of MSMEs, retail, housing, and working capital can track on their own. It will increase transparency and decrease the harassment”.

Moreover, “For one-time settlement (OTS) policy of loan for the MSMEs, we are approaching with checkbox approach. MSMEs can get settled their loan quickly from the bank”.

For NBFCs and MSMEs, the Finance Minister said, upfront we are releasing 70 thousand crores and additional lending and liquidity to the tune of 5 lakh crores can be made available by providing this upfront capital to the PSBs. It will benefit all corporates, retail borrowers, MSMEs, and small traders.

Online tracking of loan application by the customers of MSMEs, retail, housing, and working capital can track on their own. It will increase transparency and decrease harassment.

The Minister informed the media, “The current projected global GDP growth is about 3.2 percent which is probably going to revise downwards. Global demand is going to be very weak. US and Germany have also seen inversion which points to a slowdown in these countries also. With emerging economies, the advanced economies are also facing the problem of a slowdown”.  

As a result of China and US trade war, the volatile situation has been developed. Our growth rate is higher than China and Us. Reform is a continuous process done by us which started in 2014 which is going on even now.  

On IT returns the Minister said, “The ease with which one can now file the IT return has been simplified if it is all pre-filled. One just needs to make some corrections. Faceless scrutiny is going to come from the day of Vijaydashmi. In order to encourage the investment in the capital market, it has been decided to withdraw the enhanced surcharge levied by the finance number 2 Act of 2019 on long and short times capital gains”.

On the angel tax to mitigate the genuine difficulties of startups and their investors it has been decided that section 56 (2) B of the Income Tax Act shall not be applicable to startup registered with DPIIT. The section continues but that section should not be applicable to the registered startups.

On the matter of startups Minister said, “To mitigate the genuine difficulties on angel tax of startups and their investors it has been decided that section 56 (2) B of the Income Tax Act shall not be applicable to startup registered with DPIIT. The section continues but that section should not be applicable to the registered startups”.

A dedicated cell under a member of CBDT will head a cell to address the problem of startups. Any startup having any income tax issue can approach to the cell for a quick resolution.

On the issue of loan related to banks, Sitharaman added, “Banks have now decided to pass on any rate cut through the MCLR reduction to benefit all the customers. Benefits of rate reduction do not reach to the customer which affects the customer even after RBI cut the rates. The moment repo rate will be brought down it will directly reach to the customers”.