The government is expected to come out with a slew of sector-specific measures to boost economic growth along with some clarification that would exempt certain classes of foreign portfolio investors from the surcharge imposed on taxable income in the budget.
Representatives from the capital markets and foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) met finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and other senior officials of the ministry to discuss various issues affecting the sector.
While the finance minister “only heard us and did not speak,” the foreign portfolio investors said after the hour-long meeting that they were hopeful that the meeting will lead to a “positive action” on the ground.
“We discussed the rollback of LTCG (long-term capital gains tax) as most countries don’t have it…We also discussed ease of investing in India. Fear of prosecution is holding back investors. There’s a need for a stable tax regime,” said Nandita Parker, general partner at Karma Capital Management LLC.
She said the stakeholders brought to the notice of the minister the issue of surcharge on FPIs.
The meeting was attended by about 18 global investment banks, including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered and J.P. Morgan.
Equity benchmarks rose for the second straight session on Friday amid hopes that the government might take some market-friendly measures to jumpstart the sluggish economy and assuage investor concerns over taxation.
The meeting is part of the exercise undertaken by the minister to firm up steps to increase investments and boost economy, which is showing signs of slowdown.
Another stakeholder from the FPIs, who did not wish to be identified, said there was a need for clarity on ease of doing business. “Taxation, surcharge and all issues related to markets were discussed. We are hopeful that today’s discussion will lead to some result,” the executive said.
Participants also expressed concern over the current KYC norms for FPIs and demanded they should be relaxed as part of the ease of doing business.
There was also a demand to abolish the withholding tax on masala or rupee-denominated bonds.