Mauritian entities have found it difficult to benefit from the capital gains tax exemption under the India- Mauritius double taxation avoidance agreement (DTAA) upon exit from Indian investments with the tax department questioning the said benefits. Recently, the Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR), declined to give a ruling on taxability of a Mauritian resident in India, on the grounds that the transaction was prima facie designed for avoidance of tax.[1]
Putting to rest the speculation surrounding the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) with Singapore, the Government of India has finally announced that it has been revised. This announcement was made on December 30, 2016, and the text of the new protocol amending the India-Singapore DTAA (Protocol) has since been made available. The Protocol is along expected lines on the taxation of capital gains front. But, surprisingly, it has not granted incentives on taxation of interest income and Singapore based investors would be at a significant disadvantage as compared to Mauritius based investors.
KEY REVISIONS TO THE DTAA
Continue Reading India-Singapore DTAA Meets the Same Fate as Mauritius & Cyprus
India and Cyprus have recently revised the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) to be effective from April 01, 2017 and January 01, 2017 in India and Cyprus respectively.
Before 2013, Cyprus was a favoured jurisdiction for investments into India as capital gains from the sale of shares held by Cyprus based investors in Indian companies was not taxable in India. However, due to non-compliance of its information sharing obligations, India declared Cyprus a Notified Jurisdictional Area (NJA). This led to significant uncertainties. While the DTAA had not been rescinded, this development resulted in adverse implications for Cyprus based investors, including, inter alia, higher rate of withholding taxes, application of transfer pricing provisions to transactions with Cyprus based entities even though they are not related, etc. Thus, conducting regular business transactions between entities of both countries became difficult with many transactions getting deferred.
The revised DTAA is the culmination of prolonged negotiations and discussions between both the countries to address this situation. Pursuant to the execution of the revised DTAA, the notification declaring Cyprus as NJA has been rescinded.
Continue Reading Revision of the India-Cyprus DTAA: On Expected Lines
Long years of negotiations with Mauritius have finally culminated in the signing of the Protocol amending the Convention between Government of Mauritius and the Government of Republic of India (GOI) on May 10, 2016 (Protocol). This has resulted in a complete overhaul of the India – Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA).
A Few Key