CII And Grant Thornton India LLP Presents Seminar on Managing taxation efficiently -By Sachin Murdeshwar

Confederation of Indian Industry CII And Grant Thornton India LLP Presents Seminar on Managing taxation efficiently based on recent tax amendments.

 

[L to R]:Ms Karishma Phatarphekar, Partner & Practice Leader Transfer Pricing Services, Grant Thornton India LLP; Mr Vikram Batra, Additional Commissioner, Transfer Pricing and APA; Mr S M Kulkarni, Convenor - CII Maharashtra Finance & Taxation Panel & Vice President– Corporate Sales Tax, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd; Mr Sushil Solanki, IRS, Commissioner of Service Tax; and Ms Amrita Mitra, Partner, Grant Thornton India LLP

 

Mumbai 27 September 2012.(Sachin Murdeshwar):On the service tax regime, Mr Sushil Solanki, IRS, Commissioner of Service Tax said, “There has been a paradigm shift in the direct tax amendments and any service provided from companies small or big will be subject to direct tax.” Commenting on the Service tax regime he said, “The need was to introduce a transparent system in the GST where the taxpayer will know exactly how much tax he is paying. To bring about the same transparency in Service tax, the new regime of negative list in service tax has been introduced”, at the Seminar on Tax Amendments organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Grant Thornton India LLP, a leading audit, tax and advisory firm as knowledge partner at this seminar.

It focused on the recent Transfer Pricing Amendments, Introduction of the Advance Pricing Agreement regime (APA), Service Tax regime as well as key direct tax amendments.

Addressing the participants on the objective of the session, Mr Vikram Batra, Additional Commissioner, Transfer Pricing and APA stressed that,“The introduction of the APA is a very interesting step taken by the department. The APA is an endeavour of the department to provide tax certainty to the tax payer as it reduces risk of double taxation and provides added clarity to the taxpayer.”

Mr S M Kulkarni, Convenor - CII Maharashtra Finance & Taxation Panel & Vice President – Corporate Sales Tax, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd pointed out, “In the direct tax laws, there are key changes in area of transfer pricing, these have now been extended to Domestic transactions. Companies who have transactions with their group companies will be impacted with this introduction. As for the indirect taxation front, the new regime of Negative List in Service tax is the first step towards service taxation on the proposed Goods and Service Tax (GST).”

A research paper on APA’s was released during the seminar.

During the session on Transfer Pricing and Advance Pricing Agreements, Ms Karishma R Phatarphekar, Partner, Transfer Pricing Services, Grant Thornton India LLP highlighted, “The recent amendments on transfer pricing made in the Finance Act 2012, which included introduction of domestic transfer pricing, clarification of the definition international transaction and other procedural amendments.” In addition she discussed the detailed rules of the APA regime announced on August 30, 2012 and suggested that this a welcome move from the government and will provide a progressive dispute avoidance mechanism for the tax payer. She also discussed that based on the initial discussions with the APA authorities it seems that the government is making all efforts to ensure that this regime is positively and fairly implemented to eliminate the trust deficit factor between the tax payer and tax authorities on account of the aggressive transfer litigation environment.

The other presenters included Amrita Mitra – Partner, Indirect Taxation, Grant Thornton India LLP and Nitesh Mehta –CSD, Walker Chandiok & Co who presented on the recent changes in direct tax as well indirect tax amendments.