Press Trust of India
Hong Kong, Sept 20: The government is keen on early resolution of the three pending tax disputes – involving foreign giants Vodafone, Cairn and Shell — and the best way to get an expeditious disposal is being worked out, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Sunday. “The resolution can be by way of judicial tribunals, by way of discussions within or by way of some other methods that we have used in other cases,” Jaitley said here.
“But I am certain (it will be resolved), because it is necessary to resolve these issues as tax uncertainty does not help the investment environment and therefore, we want the entire instability over the taxation matters to be expeditiously resolved,” he said. In reply to a question on the pending tax disputes involving Vodafone, Cairn and Shell and his recent comments that a resolution is closeby, Jaitley said, “We inherited a legacy of several tax disputes. Perhaps, this was one of the tougher challenges we had.” “The best way to get an expeditious disposal is being worked out, these are related to the companies you have mentioned. I am seized of the matter and we are very eager to reach a resolution,” he said during his media interactions here.
Jaitley, who is here to meet foreign investors and fund houses on the second leg of his four-day visit to Singapore and Hong Kong, said the legacy issues the present government got included retrospective taxation, tax demand that was issued for prior periods and also the conflicting verdicts of various tribunals. “You cannot have a common solution for all and therefore, each of those cases were dealt with separately. Some of them we tried to adjudicate, we had adjudications expedited. The government lost some cases and I accepted the verdict without going for appeal so that the issue gets resolved,” he said.
Some of the cases were referred to an expert panel, which gave its report and the government accepted and implemented it, he said while referring to the MAT controversy and the resolution of the same. “So that the uncertainty of the past is done away with, we now have about three issues pending before us and I am looking at all those three,” the Finance Minister said. On India being ranked very low in terms of ease of doing business, Jaitley said the country was ranked 140th when the NDA government assumed power, but there can be significant improvement now.
