Addressing the company’s annual general meeting on August 12, 2019, Chairman, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Mukesh Ambani had announced a road-map for Reliance to become a net debt-free company before March 31, 2021. That was the time when, the telecom industry was passing through an unprecedented crisis with most of the companies having huge debt in their books and not generating adequate cash flows for servicing the loans (Reliance Jio – the telecommunication unit of the conglomerate – was the lone exception). The crisis was aggravated by an order of the Supreme Court (SC) on October 24, 2019 directing telecom companies to pay ‘unpaid’ dues towards license fee and spectrum usage charges [SUC]. The order was the culmination of a...
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GST – the compensation riddle
In view of the dwindling tax revenue (courtesy, reduction in their own collection as well as their share in taxes collected by the Centre as per the Finance Commission devolution formula), even as the states are demanding full compensation for the shortfall from the union government, the latter has not only been making short payment but the amount is released after considerable time lag. For instance, the compensation for October/November, 2019 about Rs 34,000 crore was released in February/April, 2020. The economic devastation triggered by a prolonged lockdown has only made matters worse. With states revenue virtually drying up during the first two months of current financial year (the trend is expected to continue through most of the year), while...
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Corporate India – tax all @15%
A major factor affecting the competitiveness of Indian industries and India’s ability to attract foreign investment for long has been the high rate of corporate tax. In 2018-19, the rate of tax on domestic companies was 30%; including surcharge and cess, the effective incidence worked out to 34.9%. Given that the corporate tax rate in other countries viz. US (21%), OECD average (21.4%), China (25%), Vietnam (20%), Thailand (20%), Singapore (17%) etc, was much lower, this made India a sort of outlier when seen from the perspective of a potential investor looking for investment opportunities. Though, the Income Tax (IT) law provides for a spate of exemptions and incentives which facilitates reduction in the tax liability, the effective incidence continues...
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Remodel Google Tax
On June 2, 2020, Trump administration announced probe into digital services taxes that have been either adopted or are under consideration by its trading partners viz. Austria, Brazil, the Czech Republic, the European Union [EU], India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and U.K. This is the so-called Section 301 investigation by the United States Trade Representative [USTR] to determine whether levies on electronic commerce [or ‘Google tax’ in short] discriminate against American tech giants like Apple, Google, Amazon etc. This could lead to the US imposing tariffs on exports from these countries. Earlier, USTR had launched and completed section 301 probe into France’s digital services tax regime [France levies Google tax @ 3% on digital transactions of firms that have annual local...
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Moratorium – no guarantee for interest waiver
On March 27, 2020, the Reserve Bank of India [RBI] governor, Shaktikanta Das announced a comprehensive action plan to resuscitate the economy devastated by the Corona virus. Apart from measures to inject liquidity in the financial system, increase in availability of credit and reduce the cost of capital, the plan sought to ease the stress of loan repayments on businesses and individuals. Amongst others, this includes 3-month moratorium on payment of installments in respect of all term loans outstanding on March 31, 2020. Even as the lockdown continued much longer than it was initially envisaged [there were three extensions after the first phase announced by Prime Minister, Modi on March 24, 2020] on May 22, 2020, the governor announced extension...
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Pesticide ban – industry’s negative stance is untenable
The decision of the union government to ban 27 commonly-used pesticides in all three main categories viz. insecticides, fungicides and weedicides in India has led to consternation among various stakeholders particularly a certain section of the industry. To understand the issue and its implications, let us put a few facts in order. The manufacturing, import, sale, distribution and use of pesticides is regulated under the Insecticides Act [1968] with a view to prevent risk to human beings or animals, and for matters connected therewith. The Registration Committee [RC] – set up under the Act – registers every pesticide after scrutinizing the formula, verifying claims of efficacy and safety to human beings and animals and specifying the precautions against poisoning and...
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Oil and gas – don’t fiddle with formula-based pricing
India depends on imports for about 83% of its crude oil and 50% of gas requirement. Considering the huge quantities involved, the price at which these products are imported has a potent effect on the health of the economy by impacting the twin deficits viz. current account deficit [CAD] and the fiscal deficit [FD] and other related parameters such as inflation, interest rate, borrowing cost etc. Therefore, all stakeholders including the government – both Centre and states – always pray for reduction in their prices. The steep reduction price of crude from over US$ 70 per barrel at the start of 2020 to around US$ 35 per barrel currently [on April 22, it even went below US$ 20 per barrel] and...
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Agri-market reforms – the big bang
Heralding a new chapter in agricultural market reforms in India, on May 15, 2020, the finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman made three major announcements under ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’. (i) enact a central legislation to enable direct purchase of specified commodities – under Entry 42 of the Union List and Entry 33 of the Concurrent List – from the farmers outside the designated APMCs [Agricultural Produce Market Committee]; (ii) enact a Central law on ‘contract farming’ to provide a legal framework for farmers to engage with processors, aggregators, large retailers and exporters in a ‘fair’ and ‘transparent’ manner; (iii) amend the Essential Commodities Act [ECA] [1954] to take off pulses, cereals, edible oil, oil seeds, onions and potatoes from the purview of...
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Power reforms – chasing a mirage
The special economic and comprehensive package ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’, unveiled by the finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman in 5 tranches during May 13 – 17, 2020, has two components that have a crucial bearing on the fledgling power distribution companies – commonly known as discoms. The discoms – mostly owned and controlled by state governments – procure power from independent power producers [IPPs] and public sector undertakings [PSUs] viz. National Thermal Power Corporation [NTPC] besides their own generating stations and sell to consumers. The first component under the first tranche provides for a special loan of Rs 90,000 crore from Rural Electrification Corporation [REC], Power Finance Corporation [PFC] to discoms to enable the latter clear their dues to IPPs and PSUs....
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Stimulus package – much ado about nothing
After a long wait of about 7 weeks since the nation-wide lockdown on March 24, 2020, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi announced on May 12, 2020 ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’, a special economic and comprehensive package of Rs 2000,000 crore, about 10% of gross domestic product [GDP], to revive the economy. The finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled the details in 5 tranches during press conferences held on May 13 – 17, 2020. The package aims at giving relief to all strata of the society impacted by sudden stoppage of economic activities viz. farmers, workers, migrant labor, micro, small and medium enterprises [MSMEs], vendors, small merchants, self-employed, middle class etc. Given its mega size, an immediate question that comes to mind is whether...
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