Retrospective Amendment ONLY in favour of taxpayer - FICCI
A FICCI Delegation met the Finance Minister yesterday and submitted some budget suggestions. FICCI President Sidharth Birla said, "To support the forward looking development and delivery oriented agenda of the new government, a non-adversarial, conducive and fair tax regulatory environment is the need of the hour. We must show that India values and welcomes capital,and supports it by clear and credible policies. Enterprise and administration must both stand assured that decisions and actions in good faith will be respected and protected."
"The Government could ideally declare as policy that retrospective action shall not be resorted to, save in rarest of cases, but never for creating a fresh onus or liability for a previous period. In fairness, retrospective change if needed must invariably favour the taxpayer.", he added.
FICCI's Suggestions to the FM included,
1. Provisions, which effectively deem portions of capital to be in the nature of income, are serious deterrents to genuine transactions, while keeping the door open for aberrant behaviour. Fishing expeditions harm business atmosphere and reputations. Rapid disposal of cases and enquiries is essential, unless there is clear evidence of wrongdoing.
2. Implementation of a comprehensive Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2015
3. Changes can be examined in laws to aggressively widen tax base, simplify laws, rationalize exemptions, conducive tax environment with litigation moderated and only as exception
4. Review relevance of a Direct Tax Code (DTC); most changes already incorporated in law
5. Review GAAR; freedom from CFC-coverage to legal Indian holdings and structures abroad
6. Possible steps on illegal assets abroad through tax net
7. Rebated income tax periods for small start-up businesses, in essence individually owned
8. Suggested START (= Sartup Rebated Tax) introduction in line with other Asian examples