Business
Government to allow flat rate tourist tax
The Scottish Government will introduce a new Bill to allow councils to institute a flat rate visitor levy.
Local authorities currently have the power to implement a so-called tourist tax on visitors to the area, but can only do so as a percentage of the cost of stays in hotels and other forms of accommodation.
But public finance minister Ivan McKee announced on Tuesday a Bill would be lodged in the new year to allow for a flat fee to be introduced, in the hopes it would pass before the end of the parliamentary term in March.
In a statement, the minister said: “The visitor levy empowers councils by giving them a new way to raise money for investment in tourist services and facilities.
“Our aim has been to give councils the flexibility to design a levy that works for their areas, while ensuring businesses can easily understand what it means for them.
“The Act passed last year was an example of partnership working between the Scottish Government, local government and tourism businesses.
“Through regular discussions with our partners, it became clear that further flexibility would be welcomed.
“That is why we have decided to legislate next year, to ensure local visitor levies work effectively for everyone.”
Scottish Tory economy spokesman Murdo Fraser said that while it was a “relief” the Government had “finally listened” to calls for the flat rate, the levy would still hurt local economies.
“Whilst that is an improvement, this legislation is still going to impose enormous costs on, and damage to, a sector of the economy which is already struggling with too high a cost base,” he said.
“The introduction of the SNP’s visitor levy has been handled in the most cack-handed fashion, with no real assessment of its impact, no clarity about how it will be collected, and a series of farcical U-turns about what powers councils would have.
“This announcement finally confirms the flexibility to set a flat rate on the visitor levy, but it won’t alter the extra costs and red tape being imposed on businesses and travellers – including Scots moving around the country for work or family reasons – or provide any assurance that these funds will benefit local communities.”
Marc Crothall, the chief executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance, said the move showed the Government’s willingness to “act on feedback from business” as he pushed for councils to pause their plans for a tourist tax.
“It will overall be easier and less costly for accommodation providers and local authorities to administer, and importantly more transparent for our visitors,” Mr Crothall said.
“We now look forward to working constructively in partnership with the Scottish Government to deliver meaningful reform of the visitor levy charging model, which we have championed from the very start.
“In the meantime, we urge all local authorities to consider pausing any plans for a visitor levy scheme as this plays out in the Scottish Parliament over the next few months. Change is coming just down the line.”
UKHospitality Scotland executive director Leon Thompson said the current legislation is “unworkable” and welcomed the Scottish Government’s “pragmatic” approach.
Business
India-Russia ties: Moscow signals readiness to fix trade deficit; energy, defence and new payment architecture on agenda – The Times of India
Russia on Tuesday said it is ready to address India’s concerns over the widening trade deficit and proposed building a framework to shield bilateral commerce from pressure by third countries. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, speaking ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s visit to New Delhi, said Moscow is also working to stabilise crude supplies after a brief dip linked to Western sanctions, according to PTI.Peskov told reporters during a video-streamed news conference that Friday’s summit between Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will focus on strengthening trade, energy cooperation, small modular nuclear reactors and additional defence projects. Putin is scheduled to arrive on Thursday for the annual meeting.Russia signals efforts to ease trade deficitPeskov acknowledged India’s concern over the large trade gap and said Russia is keen to increase its imports from India. “There is a real imbalance in our trade. We know our Indian friends are concerned about that. We are jointly looking at the possibilities of increasing imports from India. We want to buy more from India,” he said.India’s purchases of Russian goods and services amount to around $ 65 billion, while Russia’s imports from India are around $ 5 billion.He also said Moscow is taking steps to ensure crude supplies remain stable despite the impact of Western restrictions. India’s purchase of Russian oil, he said, may dip only for a “very brief period.”Push for alternative payment systems and sanctions-proof tradePeskov urged the creation of an “architecture” to insulate India-Russia trade from geopolitical pressure. “We should create an architecture of our relationship that must be free of any influence coming from any third country,” he said. He stressed that bilateral trade must be protected from external pressure and that Russia rejects the use of the dollar-denominated global payment system as a “political tool.”He indicated that settlement through national currencies may feature in the Modi-Putin talks. “We understand the pressure on India,” he said, referring to the US.The visit comes at a tense moment in India-US ties, with Washington imposing a 50% tariff on Indian goods and an additional 25% levy linked to New Delhi’s procurement of Russian crude.Defence, nuclear cooperation and technology sharingPeskov highlighted joint production of the BrahMos missile system as a model for high-technology collaboration and said discussions may cover potential supplies of Su-57 fighter jets and additional S-400 air defence systems. He also said cooperation in small and medium nuclear reactors is expected to be part of the talks. Russia has experience producing these systems and is prepared to share the technology with India.On China, Peskov said Russia’s “limitless” partnership with Beijing does not diminish its willingness to deepen ties with India. “We are ready to go as far as India is ready,” he said, adding that Moscow respects India-China relations and hopes both sides resolve their issues to preserve global stability.Ukraine conflict, counter-terrorism and Afghanistan tiesPeskov welcomed recent US mediation efforts in the Ukraine conflict, calling them “very effective” and expressing hope for progress. He said the Russia-Ukraine war will be an important part of the Modi-Putin agenda. “Russia is open for peaceful negotiation; we have to reach our goals. We appreciate the position of India,” he said.He added that Russia is ready to work with India “to combat terrorism,” and said Moscow is strengthening its engagement with Afghanistan. “We’ll continue to develop our relationship with Afghanistan,” he noted.On overall ties, Peskov said Russia is proud to stand “shoulder-to-shoulder” with India during its period of historic growth.
A senior official at the UK’s official forecaster has said he does not believe the chancellor was being misleading when she said the state of the public finances were “very challenging” in the run-up to the Budget.
Prof David Miles from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) told MPs Rachel Reeves’s comments ahead of announcing her tax and spending plans were “not inconsistent” with the situation she faced.
Reeves has rejected claims she misled the public about the country’s finances after the OBR’s economic forecasts revealed they were better than widely thought.
However, Prof Miles said despite the forecast, the chancellor still faced a “very difficult Budget and very difficult choices”.
He said the OBR raised concerns with Treasury officials about leaks to the media in the run-up to the Budget, adding: “I think it was clear that we didn’t find this helpful. We made that clear.”
But he said the watchdog was not “at war” with the Treasury.
A political row has broken out over the information shared with the public over the past few weeks over the health of the economy and the choices required to be made by the chancellor.
Last week’s Budget included a total £26bn of tax rises, with £8bn set to be raised by extending the freeze on income tax and National Insurance thresholds for a further three years. The two-child benefit cap was also scrapped.
In the build-up to the Budget, Reeves repeatedly talked about a downgrade to the UK’s predicted economic productivity that would make it hard for her to meet her borrowing rules, fuelling speculation that the income tax rates themselves would be raised, which would break a manifesto pledge.
On 4 November, she used a rare pre-Budget speech in Downing Street to warn the UK’s productivity was weaker “than previously thought” and that had “consequences for the public finances too, in lower tax receipts”.
However, it has since emerged that the OBR, which assesses the government’s tax and spending policies, had told the Treasury on 31 October that it was on course to meet its main borrowing rule by £4.2bn due to the downgrade in productivity being offset by higher wages, which increase the government’s tax receipts.
The Conservatives have claimed the chancellor gave an overly pessimistic impression as a “smokescreen” to raise taxes in order to increase welfare spending, with leader Kemi Badenoch claiming she “lied to the public”.
The £4.2bn buffer was less than the £9.9bn Reeves had left herself at the previous Budget, and Prof Miles told a committee of MPs, still “posed a significant” challenge to the government, which wanted to increase the figure overall.
The so-called headroom chancellors have left themselves – essentially a buffer to fall back on – has been smaller in recent years. Prior to November 2022, chancellors tended to create a £20bn-£30bn buffer.
Questioned by MPs over the chancellor not mentioning the surplus in the forecast, Prof Miles said the £4.2bn, while a positive number, “was by a tiny margin”, adding that the OBR was not actually looking for it to be interpreted as “this is very, very good news, there is no hole to fill – as people were saying”.
“I don’t think it was misleading, for my own view, for the chancellor to say that the fiscal position was very challenging at the beginning of that week.
“The chancellor was saying that this was a very difficult Budget and very difficult choices needed to be made. And I don’t think that that was in itself inconsistent with the final pre-measures assessment we’d made, which, although it showed a very small positive amount of so-called headroom, it was wafer thin.”
Prof Miles added that the £4.2bn buffer would also have been reduced to minus £3bn because the OBR’s forecast did not take into account the welfare and winter fuel payment U-turns made by the government.
Business
Exato Technologies IPO: The Rs 37-Crore SME IPO Gets Bids Worth Rs 23,600 Crore; GMP Surges To 114%
Last Updated:
Exato Technologies IPO: Unlisted shares of Exato Technologies Ltd are trading at Rs 300 apiece in the grey market, which is a GMP of whopping 114.29% over the IPO price of Rs 140.
Exato Technologies IPO Day 3.
Exato Technologies IPO Day 3: The initial public offering (IPO) of Exato Technologies Ltd, which opened on Friday, witnessed its final day of bidding today, Tuesday, December 2. The Rs 37.5-Crore BSE SME IPO closed at 5:00 pm today. On the last day of bidding on Tuesday, the IPO received a whopping 947.21 times subscription, receiving bids for 1,68,60,29,000 shares as against the 17,80,000 shares on offer. With this, the IPO received bids worth Rs 23,600 crore.
Its retail category got a 1,068.74x subscription, while its non-institutional investor (NII) quota got a 1,488.72x subscription. The QIB category received a 327.08x subscription.
Exato Technologies IPO GMP Today
According to market observers, unlisted shares of Exato Technologies Ltd are currently trading at Rs 300 apiece in the grey market, against the upper IPO price of Rs 140. It means a grey market premium (GMP) of a whopping 114.29%, indicating a blockbuster listing for the company.
The GMP had stood at 107.14% in the morning and 93.57% on Monday.
The GMP is based on market sentiments and keeps changing. ‘Grey market premium’ indicates investors’ readiness to pay more than the issue price.
The price band of the IPO has been fixed at Rs 133-140 per equity share.
Exato Technologies IPO: Allotment & Listing Dates
The three-day IPO bidding will be closed today, December 2. Following this, its allotment will be finalised on December 3. However, its market listing will take place on December 5 on the BSE SME platform.
Exato Technologies IPO: More Details
The Exato Technologies IPO is a book-built issue worth Rs 37.45 crore, comprising a fresh issue of 0.23 crore shares amounting to Rs 31.85 crore and an offer for sale of 0.04 crore shares worth Rs 5.60 crore.
The company has set a price band of Rs 133 to Rs 140 per share. The lot size is 1,000 shares, translating into a minimum retail investment of Rs 2,80,000 for two lots at the upper price band. For high-net-worth individuals (HNIs), the minimum investment is 3 lots (3,000 shares), totalling Rs 4,20,000. GYR Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd. is the book-running lead manager for the issue, Kfin Technologies Ltd. is the registrar, and Giriraj Stock Broking Pvt. Ltd. is the market maker.
Financially, Exato Technologies reported a 10% rise in revenue and an 84% jump in profit after tax between FY24 and FY25.
Founded in 2016, the company positions itself as a customer transformation partner, offering technology-led solutions aimed at improving customer engagement and operational efficiency. Its service portfolio spans CX and analytics, unified communications and infrastructure, and its proprietary platform Exato IQ.
The company caters to clients across BFSI, healthcare, retail, telecom, manufacturing, and the IT/ITeS and BPO/KPO sectors, leveraging AI, automation, and cloud technologies to deliver scalable and intelligent customer service solutions.
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Haris is Deputy News Editor (Business) at news18.com. He writes on various issues related to personal finance, markets, economy and companies. Having over a decade of experience in financial journalis…Read More
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