In a bid to soothe the of foreign investors nerve, disturbed by fresh claims of tax on past transactions by Indian authorities, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that his government was rationalising the country’s tax system to make it fair. Jaitley said that 'When the new government had come in, I had stated the policy of the new government that it would not move in the direction of any retrospective legislation on tax issues.' He asserted that India is sending the right messages on its non-adversarial tax policy and there are some 'legacies of the past' that are posing challenges.
The issue was raised with tax authorities slapping a $3.2-billion capital gains tax on Cairn India, a part of the Vedanta Group now, for a transaction some 10 years ago. The Indian arm of Cairn was sold by the British parent and the acquirer company, and now the company was asked to pay capital gains for not withholding such a levy. Such a tax was not explicitly in existence at that time, was introduced in 2012 with retrospective effect.
Finance minister further stated that we need a lot of investment in India and for that we need to ease the process of doing business. Therefore, slowly we are introducing changes in that direction and equitable tax system was a top priority of the government. He further said that even as India and its policies were being closely watched by the global investing community, what really mattered was whether it was moving in the right direction as promised or moving backward.
In January, the government had said that it would not appeal against a Bombay High Court ruling that Vodafone was not liable to pay tax demand of Rs 3,200 crore in a transfer pricing case.
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