Finance News

A US court has asked India to pay tax of $42.4 million for 26 story building occupied by its diplomatic staff.

The building is located in posh mid town Manhattan. New Delhi had argued that a the building occupied by its staff is exempted from tax under international treaties. But the district Court Judge ruled that under Vienna conventions, only the residence of head of the mission is exempted.

The gold price has touched $1000 an ounce. This is the first time price of gold has reached this high.

Weak US dollar and fears about the US economy is forcing investment in gold instead of company shares and dollar.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked banks to not charge any fees for customers using their own bank's Automatic teller machines (ATM). Also from 2009 April, ATM card can be used at any commercial bank ATM center.

Currently banks charge a small fee if you use your ATM card at other bank's ATM center.

There is expected to be a delay of over 10 days in Tata Motors' purchase of the luxury Jaguar and Land Rover marques. The reasons are yet to be known.

The memorandum of sales will now take place in the week beginning March 17, after the Geneva Motor Show is over. Tata Motor's 1 lakh car nano is a huge crowd puller at the Geneva motor show.

ICICI Bank has reported a loss of $264 million in overseas investment. It is one of the biggest losses reported by any Indian bank in recent times. This could wipe up to 9 percent off its annual profit.

Bank has denied US subprime crisis for the loss. Joint Managing Director Chanda Kochhar told reporters that the bank do not have any direct exposure to subprime. But he did not specify what was behind the loss.

The Sensex has dropped 500 points soon after budget proposals were announced. This was attributed to the raise in short term capital gains tax from existing 10 percent to 15 per cent. Also the corporate tax rates remained unchanged.