The government of India has set up a 10-member panel to simplify the over 50-year old Income Tax Act, in an bid to ensure certainty in tax policy for ease of doing business. Headed by retired Delhi high court judge R V Easwar, the panel will also identify provisions and phrases in the I-T Act, which lead to litigation due to different interpretations.
The term of the committee is one year and the first report is expected by January 2016. The government will most likely include some of the initial recommendations of the panel in the 2016-17 budget. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “We have been resolving a lot of past issues over the last few months and now time has come to look at some provisions of the I-T Act, to look at how their drafting quality can be improved in order to avoid ambiguity so that everybody is certain as to what the Act itself says.”
The panel has been asked to suggest alternatives and modifications to the existing provisions and areas to bring predictability and certainty in tax laws, without substantial impact on the tax base and revenue collection. Tax policy reforms have been put on priority area by the Narendra Modi government after a spate of high profile tax disputes put a dent on India's image as an investment destination.
Other members of the panel are V K Bhasin, former law secretary, Vindo Jain, chartered accountant, Rajiv Memani, consultant, Ravi Gupta, senior advocate, Mukesh Patel, chartered accountant, Ajay Bahl, consultant, Pradip P Shah, investment adviser, Arvind Modi (IRS officer), and Vinay Kumar Singh (IRS officer). “The committee is expected to give its first set of recommendations by January 2016 and taxpayers can expect to see certain measures in next budget to further streamline the tax laws,” Homi Mistry, partner, Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP, said.
