Nokia India vs Indian IT department tussle has been for long in news and still remains unresolved. Few other companies like Vodafone are also fighting it out with Indian government in court over tax claims. The culprit here was the “retrospective tax regime” which was introduced by the government, now ousted by Indian voters.
The new government as expected has started at a right note and has termed this retrospective tax menace as “Tax terrorism”. As per interview of Minister of commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman with TOI,
Minister of commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman has termed the UPA government’s move to impose retrospective tax as “tax terrorism”, while emphasising that the Modi government would squarely address the issue to send out the right signals to foreign investors.
Speaking to TOI, Sitharaman said, “During the consultations for the preparation of the budget the finance minister has been reminded of this (concerns related to tax disputes)… Many repeated the word ‘tax terrorism’. The FM is completely seized of it and he did agree that we have to be fair in tax practices to ensure that we don’t give the wrong signals.”
The recent Nokia Tax issue has brought enough bad press and has made investor sentiments plunge to record lows. It is great to see the new regime expressing resolve to make amendments.
