When Vodafone, a British telecom giant, acquired Indian telco Hutch-Essar in 2007, Vodafone’s Dutch arm had purchased majority shares in Hutch-Essar’s holding company registered in the Cayman Islands, from Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa<\/a>. In other words, Hutch-Essar’s ownership did not change, but ownership of that holding company changed. Whether capital gains tax was due when the transfer of ownership of an Indian company is achieved through an indirect transfer was at the core of the dispute over Indian authorities’ tax demand on the transaction. The Supreme Court ruled that the law did not provide for capital gains tax when the acquisition route was indirect. The 2012 amendment said capital gains tax would accrue in such indirect transfers and, further, that it had always been the intention of the law to include indirect transfers in transfers on which capital gains tax was due. To honour the arbitration award won by Vodafone, India should drop that retrospective clarification, and drop the tax demand on Vodafone.
Can the government in desperate need of revenue afford such largesse at a time when the fiscal deficit of the Centre and the states verges on a double-digit proportion of GDP? The government is extracting Rs 50,000 crore from Vodafone Idea as its share of adjusted gross revenue. Respecting international arbitration would inspire investor confidence in India.
This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Economic Times.<\/em>
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