As a continuation of our series of pre-budget interviews, Firstpost talks to Girish Vanvari, Executive Director and Co-Head Tax, KPMG.
Vanvari’s expectations from the Budget are incentives for the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors to kickstart the investment cycle and curtailment of expenditure.
He expects the government to widen tax base and stress on improving compliance. It also needs to put in place a better mechanism for dispute resolutions.
On the GST front, he is doubtful whether anything will happen until 2014-15. Once the general elections are over in 2014, the new government’s views on GST will come into play. Hence, he thinks that though there has been a positive move on GST, it is still far away.
Vanvari expects the government to widen tax base and stress on improving compliance. It also needs to put in place a better mechanism for dispute resolutions.
When it comes to DTC, Vanvari thinks most of the things in the code are already incorporated in the Act, in some form or the other.
On retrospective tax on deals involving Indian assets, Vanvari thinks that it shows how the government deals with things. “If the law as it is put today, which is retrospective 1961 get passed, or it’s not amended, then the perception which the world is carrying about India is that in India anything can change anytime. That’s not the kind of perception we want to live with.”
For Indian companies, M&As are the way ahead. It takes cares of inefficient management, he said.
He also favours tax cuts for the aviation sector as it is one of the biggest employment generators in any economy and the biggest enabler of growth.
