Ficci President Sandip Somany has stated after meeting Finance Minister Arun Jaitley that the government has promised to lower corporate tax rate to 25 per cent for all companies once GST mop-up improves.
In 2015-16 budget, the government had announced that the corporate tax rate would be gradually lowered to 25 per cent from 30 per cent over the next four years and exemptions available to companies would be phased out. In the budget 2017, the government had reduced corporate tax rate to 25 per cent for companies whose turnover was less than Rs 50 crore in financial year 2015-16. This benefitted 96 per cent of the total companies filing tax returns. The government in the next budget of 2018-19 extended the reduced tax rate of 25 per cent to companies with turnover of up to Rs 250 crore, a move which benefited the micro, small and medium enterprises. After this, out of about 7 lakh companies filing returns, about 7,000 companies which file returns of income and whose turnover is above Rs 250 crores remains in 30 per cent slab.
Somany said that US’s decision to withdraw duty benefits on Indian products under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme will make Indian industry less competitive and that he is sure that the government would take appropriate action to ensure that this is not withdrawn in case of India.
US President Donald Trump has said he intends to end the preferential trade status granted to India and Turkey, asserting that New Delhi has failed to assure America of “equitable and reasonable” access to its markets.
