Firm

A scheme of obtaining advance rulings has been in place in India since the early 1990s to help taxpayers better plan their affairs and to help prevent long and expensive litigation. Although this is a useful tool, there have been practical challenges and delays in obtaining advance rulings over the last few years. As a result, rulings which are required to be issued within six months are taking more than four years.

At the beginning of 2013, and after having had a very hard time trying to convince businesses to support the 2012 tax reform, the government promised that it would file a comprehensive tax reform to better articulate the tax system and in this way avoid the need of making reforms every other year to deal with budget constraints, writes Jaime Vargas, tax managing partner and international tax services leader at EY Colombia.

Gains arising from the transfer of capital assets situated in India are taxable in India. However, determining the tax treatment of intangible assets in an Indian context poses several challenges because of the limited guidance on this issue.