Thursday, February 23, 2012

Towards a Post Nation-States World Order

This article makes for a fascinating read.I'm sure it'll delight both the cognoscenti and the layman for how lucidly it has laid bare the facts for all of us to understand.

I,of course, don't support the author's views on the subject.

International finance has become so porous as to seamlessly move across national boundaries.All countries are losing taxes because of such clever tax planning by transnational companies, not India alone.So national govts have to sit together to amicably share the taxes due from such cross national movement of funds, and to tax such transnational companies in general.And once there is a common pool of taxes for the international community, it will be a small step to bury the anachronism of the national govts in the dustbin of history.

The major problem of taxation for countries in general is the unequal taxation rate for the super rich as against the rest of us. The effective tax rate for the richest corporations and individuals works out to around 15-18% as against 30% for the rest of us.The richest in India don't pay tax on dividends and the capital gains,which is earned mostly by the rich,is taxed only at 20%. While the short term capital gains, as from stock markets, is not taxed at all.

Such are the crying issues in taxation which needs to be urgently addressed.The govt will surely act to nullify the effect of the Sypreme Court judgement.As a short term measure,it if fine. But India needs to move the world bodies to equitably share global revenues among nation states.

The philosophy behind this is that Life,as this world that we live in,is not a zero sum game.A good work,wherever done,enhances Life everywhere in this planet.So resources will move to places that use it efficiently,and equitably.This is both right and desirable.There's no use of whining for loss of resources if your national govts have not the wherewithal to make good use of the same.The Rationalists subscribe to a zero sum game,and the consequent Victim compex.But its saner to see a wider view of Life.

February 23, 2012

Capital gains, everyone else loses

Prashant Bhushan



In the Vodafone case, the Supreme Court has again made a wrong call on tax avoidance, setting a precedent that jeopardises thousands of crores of potential revenue for the exchequer.

Tax avoidance through artificial devices — holding companies, subsidiaries, treaty shopping and selling valuable properties indirectly by entering into a maze of framework agreements — has become a very lucrative industry today.



A large part of the income of the ‘Big 5' accountancy and consultancy firms derives from tax avoidance schemes which flourish in the name of tax planning. Their legality has agitated courts in India and abroad for a long time. In 1985, a 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court in the McDowell case settled the question decisively, observing:



“In that very country where the phrase ‘tax avoidance' originated, the judicial attitude towards [it] has changed and the smile, cynical or even affectionate though it might have been at one time, has now frozen into a deep frown. The courts are now concerning themselves not merely with the genuineness of a transaction, but with [its] intended effect for fiscal purposes. No one can now get away with a tax avoidance project with the mere statement that there is nothing illegal about it. In our view, the proper way to construe a taxing statute, while considering a device to avoid tax is … to ask … whether the transaction is a device to avoid tax, and whether the transaction is such that the judicial process may accord its approval to it.”



“It is neither fair not desirable to expect the legislature to … take care of every device and scheme to avoid taxation,” the ruling added. “It is up to the Court … to determine the nature of the new and sophisticated legal devices to avoid tax ... expose [them] for what they really are and refuse to give judicial benediction.”



‘Legitimate tax planning'



Despite such a clear pronouncement, two recent judgments of smaller Supreme Court benches have gone back to calling artificial tax avoidance devices “legitimate tax planning”.



Though the Income Tax Act obliges even non-residents to pay tax on incomes earned in India, many foreign institutional investors avoided paying taxes citing the Double Taxation Treaty with Mauritius. This treaty says a company will be taxed only in the country where it is domiciled. All these FIIs, though based in other countries and operating exclusively in India, claimed Mauritian domicile by virtue of being registered there under the Mauritius Offshore Business Activities Act (MOBA). Companies registered under MOBA are not allowed to acquire property, invest or conduct business in Mauritius.



Yet these ‘Post Box Companies' claimed to be domiciled there and the I-T department allowed them to get away with claiming the benefits of the treaty for many years. Given the benign attitude of the Indian tax authorities and the fact that there was no capital gains tax and virtually no tax at all on these companies in Mauritius, most FIIs and most of the foreign investment in India, by 2000, came to be routed through Mauritius.



The party finally ended when a proactive tax officer tried to stop this blatant evasion. Relying on McDowell, he lifted the corporate veil of MOBA companies to determine their place of management and actual place of residence. Since this happened to be in different countries in Europe or North America, the relevant Double Tax Avoidance treaty became the one between India and that country. All these treaties provided for capital gains to be taxed where the gains had accrued. Since the gains accrued in India, he levied capital gains tax on these FIIs.



The CBDT circular



Responding to the FIIs' distress calls, the then Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha, got the Central Board of Direct Taxes to issue a circular stating that once a company had obtained a tax residence certificate from Mauritius, it would not be taxed in India.



The CBDT's circular was challenged in the Delhi High Court by Azadi Bachao Andolan and a retired Income Tax Commissioner. The petitioners also pleaded that the government be directed to amend the treaty with Mauritius since it had become a tax haven. The High Court allowed the writ petitions and quashed the CBDT circular, holding it violative of the I-T Act.



The government appealed, telling the Supreme Court that its circular — which effectively offered a tax holiday to FIIs — was needed to attract foreign investment. The petitioners responded that tax exemptions could only be granted by Parliament, either by amending the Income Tax Act or by the Budget passed each year, and not by the government in the guise of such a circular. However, a two judge bench in 2003 called this device an act of legitimate tax planning which could be promoted by the government to attract foreign investment, defied the Constitution bench judgment in McDowell and set aside the Delhi High Court judgment.



In the Vodafone tax case, which was heard by a 3-judge bench of the Supreme Court, the court had the opportunity to correct the transgression of the McDowell principle in the Mauritius case. In 2007, Hutchinson Telecom International (HTIL), which owned 67 per cent of Hutch Essar Limited (HEL), an Indian telecom company, sold its holding to Vodafone International (VIH BV). Both companies announced that Hutchinson had sold, and Vodafone had bought, 67 per cent of the shares and interest in the Indian company for over $11 billion.



Section 9(1) of the Income Tax Act says incomes which shall be deemed to accrue or arise in India include “all income accruing or arising, whether directly or indirectly, through … the transfer of a capital asset situated in India.”



Vodafone's claim



Since the transfer of the Indian telecom firm's shares and assets to Vodafone had led to capital gains for Hutch, the IT department demanded capital gains tax from Vodafone, which was liable to withhold this tax from the amount they paid Hutch. Vodafone claimed the transaction was not liable to tax since it was achieved by transferring the shares of a Cayman Island-based holding company and did not involve the transfer of a capital asset situated in India. The High Court rejected this contention by holding:



“The facts clearly establish that it would be simplistic to assume the entire transaction between HTIL and VIH BV was fulfilled merely upon the transfer of a single share of CGP in the Cayman Islands. The commercial and business understanding between the parties postulated that what was being transferred … was the controlling interest in HEL. HTIL had, through its investments in HEL, carried on operations in India which HTIL in its annual report of 2007 represented to be the Indian mobile telecommunication operations. The transaction between HTIL and VIH BV was structured so as to achieve the object of discontinuing the operations of HTIL in relation to the Indian mobile telecommunication operations by transferring the rights and entitlements of HTIL to VIH BV. HEL was at all times intended to be the target company and a transfer of the controlling interest in HEL was the purpose which was achieved by the transaction.



“Ernst and Young who carried out due diligence of the telecommunications business carried on by HEL and its subsidiaries made the following disclosure in its report:



“The target structure now also includes a Cayman company, CGP Investments (Holdings) Ltd. CGP Investments (Holdings) Ltd was not originally within the target group. After our due diligence had commenced the seller proposed that CGP Investments (Holdings) Ltd should be added to the target group …”



The due diligence report emphasizes that the object and intent of the parties was to achieve the transfer of control over HEL and the transfer of the solitary share of CGP, a Cayman Islands company, was put into place at the behest of HTIL, subsequently as a mode of effectuating the goal.”



Following McDowell, where the Supreme Court had decisively frowned upon tax avoidance schemes, the High Court rejected Vodafone's contention that this transaction was not liable to tax. But in appeal, a Supreme Court bench of 3 judges headed by Chief Justice Kapadia accepted Vodafone's claim that the capital gain had arisen only from the transfer of the single share in the Cayman Island company and had nothing to do with the transfer of any asset situated in India.



Despite the fact that the entire object and purpose of the transaction between Hutch and Vodafone was to transfer the shares, assets and control of the Indian telecom company to Vodafone, the Supreme Court declared in January 2012 that the transaction has nothing to do with the transfer of any asset in India!



With such welcoming winks towards tax avoidance devices, it is unlikely that any foreign company would be called upon to pay tax or at least capital gains tax in future in India. Thousands of crores of tax revenue, and the future attitude of the courts towards innovative tax avoidance devices, will be shaped by these two judgments.



The Vodafone case is in the lineage of the Mauritius case inasmuch as both encourage tax avoidance devices ostensibly to attract foreign investment. The 2G judgment of the Supreme Court cancelling 122 telecom licences granted four years earlier, in sharp contrast, enforces the constitutional principle of equality and non-arbitrariness. The proponents of FDI are groaning that this will stem the flow of investment. Honest foreign companies should not be deterred by this judgment, which strikes a blow against crony capitalism. But even if FDI becomes a casualty in the enforcement of the rule of law, so be it.



Our courts must send a clear signal that India is not a banana republic where foreign companies can be invited to loot our resources and even avoid paying taxes on their windfall gains from the sale of those resources.



(The author is a Supreme Court advocate)





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Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Why Blame the Plutocrats?

I completely agree that a very tiny number of plutocrats rule the world. But they do so more by default than by design.They act with utter disdain for the populace because their is hardly any challenge to their authority.


There are two reasons for this. One, the middle class,particularly, is a prisoner of its ego and its intellect.There are brilliant people everywhere.But the more the brilliance, the more the stranglehold of the ego.We are just unable to synergize our resources for the common good.At the first opportunity,we'll find ways to find faults with each other.

Whereas the fact is that there are more things that unite us than divide.Sustained by the same air, and nourished by the same food and water.The nuclear radiation is not going to discriminate on the basis of our nationality,religion or the colours of our skin.

So we really have to train ourselves to go beyond our personal idiosyncracies and work to secure decency for everyone. But here, again,our obsession with "getting ahead" and "showing off" stumps us.Our psyche has been poisoned by the virus of power, status and consumerism.After 70-80 years of active life,we hit the dust.So whom are we accumulating for. If we have imparted the right values to our children, they'll take care of themselves, jolly well.

We, as humanity, can never "get ahead" till suicidal policies are followed by govts the world over.We have to live in harmony with nature.Don't test its limits because it knows what is best for all of us because we are integral part of nature.And "showing off" belies a deep lack of self esteem.We are fine, howsoever we may be, but here again we have to "train" ourselves to understand our inherent grandeur.

So I don't really blame the plutocrats.We utterly deserve this thrashing. But the hope on the horizon is the emerging global consciousness,via the internet,which,in my view,will eventually prevail to usher in a global rationality.And,I'm convinced, we must all massively intervene to make this possible.Each one of us matter,even though most of us don't realize this basic fact.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Make the God Within Work for You

Friends,


I would like to support the thesis of the accompanying story.The Only reason we lead tortured lives is that the God Within is in a somnolent state and we are either unaware of Its existence or we have established no relationship with it as yet.

I have been practising this science for some years now and I now know that God,a hypothesis earlier, is a Living Reality of my life now.The practical advantage is that it has made my life a lot easier. If I want something,I don't doubt whether that thing is achievable or not.I just hang on with that thought, that desire,Visualize on it patiently, and leave it to the God Within for the Manifestation.Thus most of my desires come to fruition and there is a lot of peace, activity and excitement in my life.Because I remain supremely confident that my loving God Within will bring to fruition whatever I desire.

That's why I want to share this Hidden Secret with you.After all things have been said and done,we'll Only have ourselves for company. So let's start relying, first and foremost,on Ourselves. For too long we have been blinded by our intellect and our personality and have missed the elixir of freedom and joy which comes from befriending the God Within, our magnificent brain whose capacity we use just a tenth of.

So, folks, here's wishing the unrolling of magic in your lives.You fulsomely deserve it





--- On Sat, 1/28/12, Jason & Skye wrote:





From: Jason & Skye

Subject: the hidden secret

To: asahays@yahoo.com

Date: Saturday, January 28, 2012, 10:50 PM





did you know major celebrities such as

Tiger Woods, Ellen Degeneres, Charlie

Sheen, Drew Barrymore, Matt Damon,

and Billy Joel have a hidden secret?



They hired experts to train them in

using their MIND POWER to transform

their Mind into a more finely-tuned

success getting machine.



You can do this in 15 minutes a day--

if you are serious about developing

your mind power to its fullest extent,

you're going to need some help.



This can help immerse and cement you

into any reality you want by magnetizing

your thoughts, actions, Will and emotions

to attract your most desired lifestyle...



Check This Out



If you have 15 minutes to transform

your mind into a well-oiled machine,

this is the best way to spend it.



Enjoy,

J & Skye