Government to ensure taxation not an extra burden for investors: CEA

Davos: As the government works to improve ease of doing business in India, it is taking all steps to ensure that taxation does not become an extra burden for foreign investments, a top official said. This is a work in progress and cannot be completed overnight, stated Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian at the WEF Annual Meeting. "The whole taxation issue is indeed a concern for the foreign investors and the government is doing all that it can do to address this problem," Subramanian told in an interview.

He was responding to a query about the various taxation issues raised by foreign investors here and whether the issue of retrospective tax was still an overhang in their minds. "But it is not something that will change overnight because it is not about changing policy, but also about changing administration, which takes much more time. "It is a work in progress and the government is doing all that it can do to make sure that taxation is not an extra burden for foreign investments of all kinds," he added. Subramanian said the government is also taking various other steps to improve ease of doing business in the country.

"There are also issues like land laws, labour laws, reforms have been happening on those fronts," he added. Asked whether these steps would materially improve India's ranking on the World Bank list, he said, "We will have to wait for the World Bank to measure how these efforts have helped in terms of ranking. "Besides, the real measure will be seen in terms of actual investments that would flow in."