[The following guest post is contributed by Ananya Banerjee, a 5th Year Student of University of Calcutta, Department of Law] After the Budget Speech, 2015 of the Finance Minister, the Income Tax Department has come out with a phasing out plan under the Income Tax Act. In the Speech, the Minister indicated that the corporate tax burden will be reduced from 30% to 25% in the next four years. But...
Budget 2015: Foreign Investment
Given the economic orientation of the new government, one would expect that the Budget would make wholesale relaxations to the foreign investment policy and open up or further liberalise various sectors. But, anyone adopting that tack is bound to be disappointed as the Budget makes minimal changes regarding foreign investment. First, the vehicle of alternative investment funds receives a boost as...
Budget 2015: Financial Markets
The Budget makes some proposals to boost the financial markets in India, both in the debt and equity segments, but arguably the reforms are only incremental and many not necessary result in drastic expansion of the markets. Corporate Bonds The first proposal is to give a fillip to the bond markets. As a co-author and I have observed in an earlier paper, the equity markets in India have developed...
Budget 2015: Ease of Doing Business
The Government’s focus on enhancing the ease of doing business in India is abundantly evident from the Budget. This involves not only issues of licensing and approvals, but also matters for legal reform. In this post, I argue that while the proposals in the Budget will certainly help grow industry and foreign investment, many of these measures appear to correlate precisely with the need to...
Budget 2015: Some Preliminary Thoughts
The Finance Minister today announced India’s Budget 2015-2016. The Budget documents, including his speech are available here. It is significant that this Budget comes during a period of upturn in the economy after a few preceding years of perceived gloom and doom, especially from the perspective of foreign investors. Other features attributable to the current macroeconomic environment include...
Budget 2013: Direct Tax Proposals – Introduction
The Finance Bill, 2013, as introduced in Parliament is available here. Among the amendments introduced, one which has caused some concern is an amendment which states that Tax Residency Certificates are necessary but not sufficient. Much of the concern appears to be undue. Under the general law, TRCs are not conclusive as to residence. The amendment indicates that they are not...
Budget 2013: Foreign Portfolio Investment
The Finance Minister has sought to streamline the currently complex regime for foreign portfolio investment. The Budget speech notes: – There are many categories of foreign portfolio investors such as FIIs, sub-accounts, QFIs etc. and there are also different avenues and procedures for them. Designated depository participants, authorised by SEBI, will now be free to register different...
The Direct Tax Proposals in Budget 2012
Unsurprisingly, the retrospective amendment proposed to be made to sections 2 and 9 of the Income Tax Act has dominated analysis of the direct tax proposals in the budget. There is no doubt that these amendments, and particularly the validation clause in cl 113 of the Finance Bill, may be vulnerable to a constitutional challenge, and this is a subject we will discuss in more detail. Budget 2012...
Budget 2009: Key Features and Some Thoughts
India’s Finance Minister, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, presented the Government’s annual Budget in Parliament yesterday. While commentators brand it a mixed bag, the stock markets do not seem to have received the Budget favourably as the stock indices experienced their largest Budget-day fall in history. The purpose of this post is to highlight some of the key items in the Budget that impact the...
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