Rajya Sabha passes Tax Amendment Bill; Retrospective Tax clause scrapped

The approval came after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill in Lok Sabha on August 5.

On August 9, Rajya Sabha approved the Tax Laws (Amendment) bill despite continuous protests by the opposition. The bill aims at ending all retrospective taxation imposed on the indirect transfer of Indian assets.

As a result, all tax demands imposed on companies like Cairn Energy and Vodafone using the legislation of 2012 on indirect transfer of Indian assets before May 28 2012 will be withdrawn. This move might end the companies’ long dispute with the Centre.

Advertisement

Opposition parties including Congress, DMK and TMC staged a walkout saying that adequate time was not provided to them for the preparation of a discussion on the proposed legislation.

After the House assembled at 3:30 pm, opposition leader and Congress MP Mallikarjun Kharge protested against the taking up of the money bill as the supplementary agenda was circulated at 2:15 pm.

Kharge continued saying that the House’s members would not be able to do justice during the debate on a bill that gets circulated only a few hours before being taken up. “We cannot support such wrong practice. We are walking out”, he added. TMC’s Sukhendu Sekhar Ray and Tiruchi Siva of the DMK also joined the issue and staged the walkout with their respective parties.

However, Union Minister Piyush Goyal, the leader of the House, responded that it was not the first time that a supplementary agenda was circulated.

Lok Sabha had passed the bill on Friday amid protests over an alleged snooping through the Pegasus spyware as well as other issues.