Dear Chartered Accountants, working professionals and students in the domains of Indian auditing, accounting and the tax & regulatory space, welcome to Podcast of FCA Deepak Rao a practicing Chartered Accountant. Daily news & update for 20th June 2023 The SEBI vide Circular dated Nov 14, 2022 had introduced the registration and regulatory framework for Online Bond Platform Providers or OBP. It was noted that certain OBP’s were not complying with this circular. Now SEBI has come out with detailed regulatory norms in its circular dated June 16, 2023. Further, OBPs are now allowed to offer additional products like listed govt. securities, treasury bills, and listed sovereign gold bonds etc. on their platform. The circular shall be effective immediately. Earlier, they were allowed to offer limited products only. Gross Direct Tax collections for Financial Year 2023-24 register a growth of 12.73%. Net Direct Tax collections for the Financial Year 2023-24 has grown at over 11.18%. Advance Tax collections for the Financial Year stand at Rs. 1,16,776 crore as on 17.06.2023, showing a growth of 13.70%. Refunds aggregating to Rs. 39,578 crore have been issued in the current fiscal year. SEBI has issued a circular dated 16 June 2023, amending the Guidelines on Anti-Money Laundering Standards and Combating the Financing of Terrorism market intermediaries. SEBI has highlighted the key modifications to existing AML norms, including the definition of a “group” as per amended rules, requirements for issuing policies and procedures for dealing with money laundering and terrorist financing, client verification procedures, registration of non-profit organizations on the DARPAN Portal etc. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday asked tax officers to strengthen the GST registration process further by using technology. This was during a review meeting on fake registration and billing. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Sunday refuted reports that Rs 88,032.5 crore worth of Rs 500 notes have gone missing. The RBI said that all the banknotes supplied from printing presses to the central bank are properly accounted for. A team of the Income tax department, Kanpur division, unravelled a nexus where transactions worth several crores were being done from the accounts of junk pickers and rickshaw pullers for GST or income tax evasion. The accused established several firms in the names of hundreds of junk dealers and rickshaw pullers. These fictitious entities were used to open bank accounts using fabricated addresses. The accused obtained signatures, cheque books, and even bank details and ATM cards from unsuspecting individuals, promising them a monthly payment of Rs 10,000. Payments were deposited into their bank accounts and subsequently withdrawn through cheques. This Podcast is sponsored by Sound of CA: We share because we care. Vande Mataram Jai Hind