FE Editorial : Vodafone gets messier
The Financial Express: Dec 18 2012, 01:16 IST
If you’re looking for the best example of different arms of the government acting at cross-purposes, look no further than the Vodafone tax matter. The taxman stunned everyone when he didn’t try to tax Hutch for capital gains when it sold its India operations and instead slapped a tax notice on the buyer Vodafone. And when this got turned down at the level of the Supreme Court in a bench headed by Chief Justice SH Kapadia, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee surprised everyone with a retrospective amendment that sought to undo the court judgment. When P Chidambaram was brought in as the finance minister after Mukherjee was elevated to become President, he indicated he would try and fix things, though no specific commitment was given. A committee headed by his ex-advisor Parthasarathy Shome (he’s been appointed advisor once again) recommended against using retrospective taxes—in case such taxes did have to be used, Shome’s report said, it would be better to levy this on the seller (Hutch) and not on the buyer (Vodafone).
While the Shome report, along with other moves made by the new finance minister, seemed to calm investor sentiments a bit, the report has apparently run into some trouble since the ministry has not been able to finalise its views on the report for several weeks now. Indeed, the judicial community was also divided on the matter (see our lead story today). If this wasn’t bad enough, the government has sought yet another review of the SC judgment on grounds
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