Bring tax reforms to spur industrial growth, says CII

Thursday, 25 June 2009, 22:39 IST   |    1 Comments
Printer Print Email Email
New Delhi: The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has called for tax reforms like unifying various cesses and surcharges into a single corporate tax, allow higher depreciation and remove multiple taxation on dividend to spur growth and make India Inc globally competitive. "To reduce complications and unproductive time spent by industry in tax filing, it is more efficient to have one rate of corporate tax rather than many cesses and surcharge," CII said in a statement. "A component of corporate tax can be set aside for supporting the education needs of the country, without having a separate levy. In other words, the rates need to be collapsed into the single corporate tax rate," it added. To give an impetus to industrial growth, the industry lobby also advocated "incentivising" investments. "Depreciation rate in case of plant and machinery should raised from 15 percent to 25 percent (as was the case earlier) and allow full depreciation on assets which have limited life and small cost up to 25,000." While asking the government to restore the depreciation rate applicable to hotel buildings to the earlier 20 percent from the current 10 percent, it also recommended bringing "goodwill" under the purview of intangible assets in order to be eligible for depreciation. Additionally, CII called for ending multiple taxation on dividend distribution by a corporate group and its subsidiary. It recommended that dividends from overseas entities, received in the form of convertible foreign exchange in India should be fully exempt from tax.
Source: IANS