Finance Minister Arun Jaitley: First tranche of corporate tax reduction in next Budget

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today that the government will list out within the next few days the exemptions to be phased out as a part of its plan to gradually cut down the corporate tax rate to 25 per cent. He also said that the first tranche of which will be announced in the Budget in February. “I have declared a road map for direct taxation… (to) bring down the corporate tax to 25 per cent by phasing out some of those exemptions. We are heading to put in public domain within the next few days some of those exemptions that we intend to phase out in the initial round,” he said in an interactive session while addressing corporate leaders at the ‘National Strategy Day in India’ organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). “The first tranche of corporate tax reduction… I hope to do it in the near future when the new Finance Bill comes up”, he added. In February in his Budget the Minister had announced the government’s intention to cut down the corporate tax from 30 per cent to 25 per cent over consecutive four years. Jaitley also said that the government has been able to address numerous tax legacy issues, including those pertaining to retrospective tax amendment, although two-three problems remain. “Systematically, we’ve been resolving (taxation issues) one by one… That concern of retrospective taxation has gone. Two-three of those problems remain and they remain owing to legal reasons. I even publicly announced that we are looking for processes by which we are able to resolve a number of these,” Jaitley said.

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