India Inc Wants Friendly Tax Environment
NEW DELHI: Non-adversarial tax regime, low cost of capital, infrastructure status to real estate urban realty to unlock growth potential, a fillip to small industries and a five-year roadmap for disinvestment of public sector units, were some of the broad suggestions that India’s industry chambers put before Finance Minister Arun Jaitley when they met him on Tuesday for the customary pre-budget meet.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, CII President Ajay Shriram while describing the discussions as good said “We raised several issues. The minimum alternate tax (MAT) rate should be restricted to 10 per cent to provide a fillip to manufacturing. The developers and units in SEZs should be provided relief from MAT and DDT.
Shriram said the economy was on the cusp of recovery and felt new ideas and initiatives would make the recovery process faster and robust.
Demanding a stable and a less aggressive revenue approach, Ficci President Jyotsna Suri wanted efforts to be made to move away from the aggressive revenue approach and provide “a genuine non-adversarial and conducive tax environment” for industry and economy to flourish.
She said, “I requested for rationalisation of tax regime.” And wants taxmen to be judged on their performance rather than the targets they achieve as it would lead to a less coercive tax regime.
“The availability of capital and cost of capital is of paramount importance. Banks are reluctant to provide credit to export sector. Bring exports under priority sector lending,” is what FIEO President Rafeeq Ahmed wanted to be flagged in the forthcoming Budget.
Assocham president Rana Kapoor wanted the government to embark on a 5-year systemic programme for disinvestment, especially for non-strategic sectors with a rolling list of targets and aim to disinvest each year equal to about 0.5 per cent of the GDP.
In his memorandum he also suggested that the government should create a 5-year roadmap for recapitalisation of PSU banks and set up a Bank Investment Company (BIC) under RBI to act as a core investment committee and hold equity shares in PSBs.