In a bid to resolve various taxation issues, including Goods and Services Tax (GST), the Government has prepared a road map to end the pain of taxation and will come out with a list of exemptions in the next few days.
As part of the plan, the Government has decided that its first step will be to gradually reduce Corporate Tax to 25 per cent in the near future, the first tranche of which will be announced in the Budget in February.
“I have announced a road map for direct taxation to bring the Corporate Tax down to 25 per cent by phasing out some of those exemptions. In the next few days, we are going to put in public domain some of those exemptions that we intend to phase out in the first round.
The first tranche of reduction of Corporate Tax will be announced in the Budget,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday while participating in an interactive session at the ‘National Strategy Day in India’ organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
“The signs of growth are visible and we promised to carry out legislative reforms by bringing in a bankruptcy law and modifying the Specific Relief Act,” Jaitley added.
The Finance Minister in his last Budget in February had announced the Government’s intention to reduce Corporate Tax to 25 per cent from 30 per cent over the next four years. “The Government has been able to address various tax legacy issues, including those pertaining to retrospective tax amendment, though two-three problems remain. Systematically, one by one, we have been resolving taxation issues. That fear of retrospective taxation has gone. Two-three of those problems remain and they remain because of legal reasons. I have publicly announced that we are looking for processes by which we can resolve some of these,” Jaitley said.