NEW DELHI: The income-tax department has sought Rs 1,180 crore more tax from DLF, the countrys largest real estate developer, and its 22 subsidiaries for the assessment year 2009-10. The group, which has filed an appeal with the appropriate appellate authorities, has not made any provision toward this demand in DLFs third quarter result. The tax demand was raised in the previous quarter. There are various companies involved in these cases and each of these entities have filed an appeal with their competent authorities in different locations, Ashok Tyagi, companys chief financial officer said. Based on expert advice we have a very strong case in most of these claims, he added. The company has made a significant investment in acquiring fresh land that has resulted in exceeding the capital expenditure by Rs 500 crore for the third quarter, said another company official. Due to fresh capital investment i...

Sectoral schemes are in the limelight these days. No wonder, considering they have beaten the broad market by a handsome margin lately. Consider this: according to Value Research, an independent mutual fund industry tracking firm, sectoral funds have outperformed the BSE Sensex by a huge margin. The pharma fund, the top performer, returned 32.26% in the past one year, while the Sensex gained just 11.47%. Other sectoral schemes such as FMCG (31.20%), banking (25.40%) and technology (19.55%) also posted impressive returns in the same period. These are exactly the kind of returns that catch the attention of individuals scouting for investing avenues. Blinded by the numbers, many of them consider investing in one of the sectoral schemes. However, this could prove a costly mistake. This is because sectoral schemes tend to move in cycles. For example, the top performers of the season phar...

KOLKATA: Insurance regulators revised norms on unit-linked products did not have a major effect on the life insurance industry's first premium income growth. At least, thats what the data for new premium income during April-December 2010 period shows. Data released by the regulator show that the life insurance industry registered a 28% growth in first premium income during April-December 2010, against an achieved growth of 29% during the previous corresponding period a marginal 1% fall. Average premium paid during the period per policy has, in fact, increased to Rs 2,825 from Rs 1,996 in the previous period a 41% rise in average premium paid. For private players, the average premium per policy was Rs 3,139 during April-December 2010, against Rs 2,342 in the previous period a 34% jump. LIC managed to increase its average premium per policy by almost 47%. Prem...

Fundraising Standards Board launches inquiry after businessmen earned 10m from donated secondhand clothes The UK's charity fundraising regulator has asked the Salvation Army to explain revelations that it allowed a businessman to earn a multimillion-pound personal fortune from selling secondhand clothes donated to the cause. The Fundraising Standards Board has asked the Christian charity to investigate complaints that it may have misled its donors about the use of profits from the sale of the 2,500 of tonnes of clothing donated each month A director of the charity's trading arm personally earned more than 5m from sale of the clothes over the last five years, affording him a lifestyle that included buying a racehorse and a 1m mansion. The wording on the side of the charity's secondhand clothes banks dotted across supermarket car parks nationwide said profits from their sale are used "to help the Salvation Army's work with people in need both at home and abroad...

House prices dropped by 0.2% in December, Land Registry figures show, but rose by 1.2% across last year as a whole House prices dropped by 0.2% in December, resulting in an annual price increase of 1.5% last year, according to figures released by the Land Registry today. This is the fourth successive monthly fall in prices, although the speed of decline slowed in December from November's 0.9% fall and the 0.6% fall in October. This has resulted in an average property value of 163,814 in 2010, down by 1.9% (3,219) from a peak of 167,033 in August. Howard Archer, chief UK economist at analysts IHS Global Insight , said: "Evidence is coming thick and fast at the moment that housing activity remains in the doldrums and prices are slipping. "We maintain the view that while house prices will fall by around 10% from their peak 2010 levels by the end of this year, given that house prices fell by around 2%-4% in the latter months of 2010 depending on what measure you take Halifa...

Girls under 16 earn 18.77 a week compared with 18.31 for boys, a survey shows The gender pay gap is still some distance from closing, with women earning 10% less than men , according to the most recent official figures, and some experts predicting public sector cuts could even lead to a further widening of pay disparity this year . So it's encouraging to see a survey which suggests that among the very young at least the trend may be reversing. Girls aged under 16 now earn more from part-time working than their male counterparts, according to research by Halifax Savings. The poll of 1,204 children aged between eight and 15 puts girls' average weekly earnings at 18.77 compared with 18.31 for boys. The report doesn't speculate on why this has happened, but does throw up some other interesting findings. The trend seems to fluctuate over time with, for example, the last time girls earning more than boys being 2005, well before the recession and when weekly earnings for children ...

Fundraising Standards Board launches inquiry after businessmen earned 10m from donated secondhand clothes The UK's charity fundraising regulator today initiated a complaints procedure against the Salvation Army after the Guardian revealed it had allowed a businessman to earn a multimillion-pound personal fortune from selling second-hand clothes donated to the cause. The Fundraising Standards Board has asked the Christian charity to investigate complaints that it may have misled its donors over the use of profits from the sale of around 2,500 of tonnes of clothing donated each month. A director of the charity's trading arm personally earned more than 5m from sale of the clothes over the last five years, affording him a lifestyle that included buying a racehorse and a 1m mansion. The wording on the side of the charity's secondhand clothes banks dotted across supermarket car parks nationwide said profits from their sale are used "to help the Salvation Army's work wi...

Elise Bray's state pension could have doubled her income, but now she has to wait at least 12 months longer to receive it Elise Bray, 57, has been struggling to live on an occupational pension of just 7,000 a year since 2007, and is dismayed that the state pension, which could more than double her annual income, could be deferred by another 12 months. "I was shocked when I heard about the new intended rise. I understand that it is necessary and fair that men and women should have the same state pension age. But couldn't the government let those ages equalise by 2020 as previously planned and then start raising them again? Bringing forward the rise to 66 gives women in their 50s very little time to plan for the loss of income," she says. Bray worked as an office manager for the Department for Transport until 2005, when she was diagnosed with cancer. While she was off work the department started making cuts and she agreed to take early retirement. She returned at the ...

Chris and Fee have more faith in GPs than perhaps the GPs do themselves

Friends of hip-hop pioneer, who is suffering from an undisclosed condition, launch appeal to help pay for his hospital treatment DJ Kool Herc, one of the founding fathers of hip-hop, is allegedly "very sick" and cannot afford hospital treatment. The man who invented breakbeats is without health insurance and needs help, his friends say, to pay for surgery. "[He] who we call the father of hip-hop, Kool Herc, is not doing well," DJ Premier revealed on his Sirius XM radio show this weekend. "Since he's very sick and has no insurance ... [he] needs to pay his bills so he can get out of hospital." Kool Herc, real name Clive Campbell, was an integral figure in early hip-hop, developing DJ techniques and encouraging breakdance culture. But although he was a major influence on artists such as Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc was a DJ, not a record producer, and did not score any hits. Consequently, Premier said, the 55-year-old cannot afford ...

Report says more than 11.5 million people used their credit card for day-to-day living a sign of financial distress to lenders More than 11.5 million people (34% of credit card holders) spent January relying on their credit cards to fund day-to-day living costs, according to research by the Post Office . The Post Office Consumer Credit Report also found that 43% of credit card holders used their cards for grocery shopping which generally make up a substantial part of regular outgoings. Both uses of credit cards are deemed to be a sign of financial distress by lenders. One in ten of those using their card in January said they needed to use their card to see them through until pay day the only time of year when many monthly salaries have to stretch up to six weeks (if employers have paid the December salaries early to make Christmas shopping easier). More than one in ten said they needed their card to cover overspend on Christmas purchases, while a third admitted to relying on their c...

Report says more than 11.5 million people used their credit card for day-to-day living a sign of financial distress to lenders More than 11.5 million people (34% of credit card holders) spent January relying on their credit cards to fund day-to-day living costs, according to research by the Post Office . The Post Office Consumer Credit Report also found that 43% of credit card holders used their cards for grocery shopping which generally make up a substantial part of regular outgoings. Both uses of credit cards are deemed to be a sign of financial distress by lenders. One in ten of those using their card in January said they needed to use their card to see them through until pay day the only time of year when many monthly salaries have to stretch up to six weeks (if employers have paid the December salaries early to make Christmas shopping easier). More than one in ten said they needed their card to cover overspend on Christmas purchases, while a third admitted to relying on their c...

Our expert guides you in matters relating to mutual funds. Merits of sips over lump sum investments I am 25 and want to invest Rs 20,000 in non-tax saving mutual funds. Please suggest a suitable fund. I will need the money in 10 years. ankurbhutani 85@hotmail .com Since you are young, you should save regularly through systematic investment plans than lumpsum investments. By investing a fixed amount at predetermined intervals, the trouble of figuring the best time to invest is eliminated, which offers an efficient way to ride market volatility. For a 10-year time frame, consider large-cap funds such as Franklin India Bluechip or IDFC Imperial Equity Plan A or invest in large- and mid-cap funds such as Birla Sun Life Frontline Equity Plan A or HDFC Top 200. They are 5-star rated with a proven track record. Make sure to track the progress on your investment...

Exclusive: Directors of Kettering Textiles Limited have earned almost 10m since 2008 through deal to run recycling banks The Salvation Army is facing calls to explain how it allowed a private businessman to build a multimillion-pound personal fortune with profits from its charitable clothes recycling scheme intended to be used for good causes. A Guardian investigation into the lucrative operation has revealed that Nigel Hanger, a 56-year old textiles trader from Kettering, has earned almost 10m for himself and three fellow directors since 2008 though a deal to run the Christian charity's nationwide network of 4,500 textile recycling banks. Signs on the banks in supermarket car parks claim profits are used "to help the Salvation Army's work with people in need both at home and abroad". But Hanger, a Northamptonshire textile trader who owns Kettering Textiles Limited (KTL), which is contracted to run the scheme, also earned more than 1.6m from the fundraising operation...

Moderately high earners to suffer most, says Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis Nearly a million people will see their tax rates soar as the government's austerity package kicks in this spring, potentially to as high as 83%. Analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies today reveals that changes in April will drag 750,000 people into the 40% tax bracket. Meanwhile, little-publicised tax credit cuts will push the marginal rates of 175,000 working parents up above 70%. In theory, effective tax rates in Middle Britain could reach 83%, the rate that Labour levied on Britain's top earners before 1979. A few days after the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, warned that wages were set for their longest continuous squeeze since the 1920s, the IFS exposes how the tax changes will compound the misery. Moderately high earners with children to support will suffer particularly. For example, a worker on 45,000 with a non-working spouse and two children will be worse off by ab...

Ieuan Jones implicated in employment case brought by a black policewoman that was settled out of court by the Met in 2004 Kate Middleton's personal police bodyguard was implicated in a long-running campaign of racial and sexual harassment of a black policewoman. The case, which was settled out of court in 2004, saw the Metropolitan police pay 300,000 to Joy Hendricks to compensate for what she claimed was "five years of systematic victimisation" during her time in the Met's Territorial Support Group (TSG). In legal papers lodged at an employment tribunal in 2003, Hendricks named Ieuan Jones, now a detective sergeant and one of Middleton's armed protection officers, as being one of the senior officers responsible for a TSG team which subjected her to abuse and harassment. Hendricks said that a team of officers destroyed her through racist and sexist abuse. She has not been able to work since 1999, when she was forced to leave the Met because of stress caused by th...

Prezza's latest reinvention sees the former deputy prime minister thumping a punchbag in a TV ad He was always a polymath. Politician, street-fighter, and sometime cultural critic : former deputy prime minister John "Two Jags" Prescott can turn his hand to anything. Quite literally, as a Cardiff egg-thrower found to his cost in 2001. But Prezza's latest reinvention still doesn't seem any less weird a week or so in. Appearing alongside comedian Omid Djalili in an advert for insurance website moneysupermarket.com, Lord Prescott of Kingston upon Hull is the latest and most unexpected big name to enter the glamorous world of celebrity endorsements. The 30-second advert, which opens with Prezza thumping a punchbag to the soundtrack of Rocky's Eye of the Tiger, gently ribs Prescott for both his pugilistic instincts, and his love of fast cars. "What's the matter this time, bruiser?" Djalili asks the breathless peer. "You trying to be funny, la...

NEW DELHI: UTI Mutual Fund is starting its second round of pan- India .investor education and financial inclusion initiative from February 2 to spread awareness about benefits of investing in mutual funds . As part of the initiative, christened as Swatantra, two UTI knowledge caravans will travel across Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, starting from Thiruvananthapuram, to spread awareness about financial planning, UTI MF CMO Jaideep Bhattacharya said. For this, UTI MF has tied up with HDFC Bank, the largest distributor of mutual fund products, which would arrange the investor meets across rural areas in Southern India. "We aim to impart financial literacy to a larger subset of rural customers across the 250 rural and semi-rural branches of HDFC Bank," HDFC Bank Senior Executive VP (Third Party Products & Private Banking) Nitin Rao said. ...

Buy-to-let investors are taking 'foreclosure bus tours' to snap up repossessed homes in the US and Spain for as little as 30,000 British investors unable to afford buy-to-let properties in the UK are buying ultra-cheap repossessed US homes in a bid to profit from rent guarantee schemes and possible long-term capital appreciation when the American economy recovers. The homes are selling for as little as 20,000 in cities such as Detroit, where the combination of long-term unemployment and the credit crunch has led to house price falls of 70% since 2006, with few signs of any imminent recovery. "We had money in premium bonds and savings in this country, getting almost no returns, and we couldn't afford to buy an investment property here. Then we heard about buying in the US," says Lynn Duggan, a clinical co-ordinator from New Malden in Surrey. "At first we were wary and we spoke to some US legal contacts. We were attracted by the principle of a government-guaran...

From a remote Cornish property with a stunning view, to your Moroccan dream home

The scandal of the bank bonuses saga rattles on, as George Monbiot shows ( Comment , 25 January). Although the Royal Bank of Scotland is 84% and Lloyds Banking Group is 41% owned by the taxpayer, Stephen Hester, CEO of one, and Eric Daniels, outgoing CEO of the other, are in line for massive bonuses, as are other senior executives. It is now some two years since the Brown administration set up UK Financial Investments Ltd to manage the taxpayer's stakes in the partly nationalised banks, with a remit to adopt "a robust approach", as an "active and engaged shareholder", in agreeing pay structures and levels "which are fair and appropriate". And it is nine months since the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition agreement spoke of "robust action to tackle unacceptable bonuses". Yet, as Monbiot illustrates, the government has been back-pedalling on introducing tougher European rules on bonuses and senior bank executives continue to cream off moneys wh...

AA joins clamour for chancellor George Osborne to scrap the next planned increase in fuel duty on 1 April Pump prices hit record levels today, piling pressure on the government to cut fuel duty. Motoring groups described the increased cost of motoring as the "road to misery" as fuel monitoring group Experian Catalist said the average price of a litre of diesel had hit 133.26p and petrol 128.6p. Fuel has now passed the previous high seen in the summer of 2008, pushed up by a combination of soaring crude oil values and a succession of tax increases. George Osborne has hinted in recent days that he is considering freezing duties that are due to increase further on 1 April. On Thursday the Chancellor said: "We can override it. We are looking at that." Pressure to cut prices increased when the RAC motoring organisation said it was joining the Fair Fuel UK campaign started by truckers and the Freight Transport Association. The AA said the new diesel price meant that drive...

Chris, Fee and KJ ponder how the Treasury might tackle the issue of 775m compensation to nearly a million people

Need to find some and book budget accommodation with minimum fuss? The Premier Inns app is a good place to start App: Premier Inns Price: Free Available on: iPhone, Android, Nokia and BlackBerry What is it? A simple app to find and book Premier Inn hotels. Who is it by? Premier Inns, Britain's biggest budget hotel chain, while the app was developed by business solutions specialist Fujitsu . What does it promise? "Real-time availability of all 590 Premier Inn hotels. Customers can manage their booking from start to finish, while on the move." How does it work? It allows you to immediately search for hotels near you (always handy) or by location, then add your details (dates and number of people etc), and look at the results. Results are displayed well enough, with a photo and address of each hotel plus buttons to book or call, an image gallery and an integrated Google map to locate you hotel. There is also a description of the hotel and local area. So there's pretty...

The minimal help given to jobseekers by measures such as the Flexible New Deal benefits the providers, not the unemployed It's over. I have finished my four-week period of mandatory work-related activity , a requirement of the Flexible New Deal , and I am sitting in the reception area waiting for my A4e appointment . My caseworker appears. "Hello John," he says. I can't remember when he first started calling me John, it isn't the first time he has but I let it slide; I did after all change his name to "Fred" when I first wrote of my jobseeking experience for Comment is free back in November . Fred's first language isn't English, and the corporatist sloganeering that employees are trained to use hasn't perfectly masked that fact that he isn't fluent either. For someone like me, diagnosed on the autistic spectrum (a condition defined by complex communication issues ), this is an amazing oversight on the part of A4e , the private contractor ...

Today the TUC will decide on how to mobilise opposition to the cuts but what exactly would co-ordinated strike action involve? The Trades Union Congress meets today to decide how it will respond to government spending cuts. Last September, it voted to organise co-ordinated resistance to these cuts. Since then, it has been educating its members and the public about the scale and detrimental impact of the cuts on public services and the economy at large. Now, it has to turn to the issue of mobilising opposition. It is organising what it hopes will be a massive demonstration on 26 March . And while this will be an important barometer of whether there is support for resistance, the crucial issue is whether or not the unions can organise co-ordinated strike action which is effective. Governments can ignore one-off demos but not action that stops services and the economy. What is co-ordinated strike action? It is unions organising separate industrial disputes so that workers in different...

As tens of thousands of public sector employees receive "job at risk" letters, guest blogger Redundant Public Servant reflects on the language of redundancy Here is the latest post from guest blogger Redundant Public Servant What does the language of redundancy sound like? If they haven't yet arrived, many unlucky public servants will soon be getting letters from their employers that will change fundamentally how they think and feel about work. Perhaps the hardest thing to get to grips with is the tone of "at risk" letters. Sometimes the writer will beat around the bush before getting to the point. That wasn't my experience, but others I have been in touch with say that it wasn't obvious from the heading or the first few paragraphs that anything bad was about to happen. "Shaping the future" is a tempting heading. Sounds faintly optimistic doesn't it? Then a first sentence that reads something like: "As you will know the public sector ...