"BOTH
OECD and the Indian Government believe that BEPS is going to change the way
business is done. This is the right time to look closely at the BEPS reports and
structure our transactions accordingly”, said Mr Akhilesh Ranjan, Joint
Secretary (FT & TR), Central Board of Direct Taxes.
Mr
Ranjan was speaking at the “Conference on BEPS: Big Change in Global Taxation –
Impact on India”, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in
Delhi today. Mr Ranjan further stated that “Industry should start working
towards BEPS readily, in order to keep up with the upcoming changes. The
objective of the BEPS project is to prevent strategies to shift profits and
review the whole system of International taxation. It is aimed at domestic
resource mobilisation”.
Mr
Ranjan further mentioned that G20 has been endorsing the BEPS project and OECD
has been entrusted with the mandate to establish an inclusive framework so that
countries around the world other than the OECD/ G20 countries can be a part of
this revolutionary project.
Throwing light on the initiatives being taken by the Government of India
towards successful implementation of the BEPS project, Mr Ranjan stated that
“internal groups have been set up to prioritize measures that need to be
implemented now and those which can be postponed.” He welcomed broad
consultations and discussions with the Industry and business stakeholders, and
invited responses on the BEPS initiative from the industry. He further called
for a consistent and sustained implementation of BEPS in a unified and timely
manner.
While
opening the session, Ms Neeru Ahuja, Chairperson, CII Sub Group on BEPS observed
that the BEPS project is extremely important and relevant for India, which has
been an active participant in all the discussions leading to the finalization of
action reports. The Indian Industry welcomes the initiative as this is bound to
bring greater level of transparency and predictability to the existing tax
regime and also enables alignment of Indian tax laws with global best practices,
she said.
Speaking at the Conference, Mr Sudhir Kapadia, Partner & National Tax
Leader, EY India mentioned that in taxation, the overarching aspect is the
bridge between tax policy and tax administration. It would be important to see
how the approach of the tax administration would evolve in the post BEPS world.
He stressed that the substance vs. form debate is quite subjective and may lead
to potential disputes.The Government must improve the current dispute resolution
mechanisms, especially in the field of International taxation. He further
emphasised that transparency will be the key and reporting and compliance is
bound to increase substantially.
The
Annual Conference on BEPS has been organised by CII second time in a row. A
Thought Leadership on “BEPS – An Indian perspective on critical areas” was also
released at the Conference.
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