FE Editorial : Taxing tangle
The Financial Express: Feb 14 2013, 23:53 IST
Though the taxman undoubtedly has his reasons for the plethora of transfer pricing adjustment orders given, and being planned, it cannot be denied this is having an adverse impact on India’s image as an investment-friendly destination. On Tuesday, two big investors—Shell and Nokia—described the taxman’s demands as absurd and unacceptable. How could, Shell’s chief fulminated, the taxman issue a $1 billion demand on a $160 million infusion by Shell Gas BV into a loss-making Indian subsidiary four years ago? As FE has reported before, transfer pricing adjustment demands were around R1,220 crore in FY06 and these rose to R44,532 crore in FY12. Given the OECD’s call on Tuesday to crackdown on MNCs that dodge paying corporate taxes, chances are this will further strengthen the taxman’s resolve. While the main Vodafone case is not a transfer pricing one, the taxman appears to be digging in his heels here as well, given how the original demand for tax payments has been sent once again to the telco.
Perhaps it is now time to follow a different approach, on even what are considered to be routine tax matters, the kind followed by the government while introducing the GST, for instance, or even in the manner in which GAAR and retrospective taxation was to be dealt with—open up the process to public scrutiny and get as much public opinion as possible on the matter. In the case of extending the securities transaction tax (STT) to commodities, for instance, many have pointed out that the imposition
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