New Delhi: The government gave a patient hearing to the suggestions coming from foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) on the new tax proposed in the Budget but is yet to take a call on either revoking or minimising the impact of the new surcharge that has already seen investors taking out over Rs 22,000cr since July 5.
The finance ministry had called a meeting with FPIs and domestic institutional investors Friday to hear their concerns about some of the recent changes in taxation for overseas investors. Representatives of the FPIs met the Finance Minister and secretaries in North Block.
Participants comprising all major foreign institutions investors were, however, left high and dry with finance ministry officials giving no comments on their suggestions but heard everyone on each point they raised.
There was speculation that the government might come with some decision Friday itself as a confidence building measure. Reports of tax withdrawal have already pushed up the Sensex by over 900 points in the two-day session.
In the meeting, FPIs sought tax stability from the Finance Minister to be able to invest and stay invested in India while seeking rollback of the tax surcharge on them.
Nandita Parkar, President, AMRI (Association of Asset Management Roundtable of India) an association of FPIs, said “We talked about taxation, ease of doing business. We told them that India can attract 25-35 billion-dollar investment just in equity FPI flows and in order to do that to let that happen one of the conditions is a stable tax regime which is very important so that the tax does not act as a hurdle and tax needs to be predictable for investment. So that was a big issue which we discussed.”