The RBI, on 29th September, 2015, through A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No.17, relaxed external commercial borrowing to allow Indian corporates to raise funds from overseas market by issue of rupee-denominated bonds. In its fourth bimonthly monetary policy RBI has decided to permit corporates to issue rupee denominated bonds often referred as ‘masala bond’ with a minimum maturity of 5 years at overseas locations within the ceiling of foreign investment permitted in corporate debt of $51 billion. there will be no restriction on the end use of funds except a small negative list. The framework for the rupee denominated bonds will be announced separately. This article will provide you with the broad contours of the framework.

The Government of India enacted The Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 (“Black Money Act”) on May 26, 2015 to address the issue of undisclosed assets held abroad. It provides for separate taxation of income and assets acquired abroad from income not disclosed but chargeable to tax in India. To effectively deal with assets held abroad by persons resident in India in violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (“FEMA”) for which declarations have been made and taxes and penalties have been paid under the provisions of the Black Money Act, RBI has issued the Foreign Exchange Management (Regularization of assets held abroad by a person resident in India) Regulations, 2015 though Notification No. FEMA 348/2015-RB dated September 25, 2015 vide G.S.R. No. 738 (E) dated September 25, 2015.

With a view to promoting the ease of reporting of transactions under foreign direct investment, the Reserve Bank of India, under the aegis of the e-Biz project of the Government of India had enabled the filing of Form FC-GPR and ARF (Advance Remittance Form) with RBI online from 19th February, 2015. Now, 24th August, 2015, Form FC-TRS can be filed online as well. This article will give you a brief on the process of filing the RBI Forms using the e-Biz platform.

Each time in July, RBI comes out with a Master circular on various important topics of FEMA. These master circulars contain all the provisions from various AP(DIR Series) Circulars for that particular topic, including all the changes that may have taken place in the year in such provisions. This article contains the changes that have been incorporated in the Master Circular No. 11/ 2015-16 on Direct Investment by Residents in Joint Venture (JV) / Wholly Owned Subsidiary (WOS) Abroad issued this year on 1st July, 2015, as compared to Master Circular No. 11/ 2014-15 dated 1st July, 2014 (amended upto 04th July, 2014).