The Finance Bill 2024 had proposed the removal of indexation for all capital assets.
The implications of the change were earlier commented upon in this column on 28 July 2024.
One of the points highlighted in the article was that the change, inter alia, hit hard the investments made in debt schemes of mutual funds on or before 31 March 2023.
The article had suggested that the withdrawal of indexations should not be sudden and a provision to exit within a reasonable period should be incorporated.
While passing the Bill into law, the provisions were amended only to a limited extent to allow indexation for residential property owned by individuals and HUF (Hindu undivided family), if they were acquired before 23 July 2024, the date of the introduction of the Bill.
In giving the taxpayers an option to choose between the better of the two available methods for computation of tax on the sale of residential property, the government acted more than fairly.
When the Finance Act 2023 brought in the changes to treat all investments in the debt schemes of mutual funds as short-term investments, it sheltered investments made up to 31 March 2023 from the adverse change.
The important aspect to note is that the changes grandfathered not just the investments made before 1 February 2023, when the Finance Bill was introduced in the Parliament, but allowed further investments till 31 March 2023 to qualify as long-term capital assets if held for more than 36 months.
The most important benefit of treating an investment as long-term in nature was the facility of indexation.
However, within just about a year from the time the benevolent carve out was provided, the latest change has removed the benefit of indexation and replaced it with a lower rate of tax.
It was pointed out in the earlier article that the logic given by the establishment, that the removal of indexation and replacing it with a lower tax was beneficial to most taxpayers, was flawed.
Even if such was the basis for the change, based on some wrong understanding, it was argued the option of availing indexation should be retained at least for a few years to help past investments made to be exited without an adverse tax cost.
This plea was only partly accommodated in the final law that allowed the benefit of indexation as an option in respect of residential properties owned by individuals or HUF, if it was acquired before 23 July 2024.
The place where the withdrawal of the indexation was expected to hurt most was the existing investments in debt schemes of mutual funds made on the faith that the indexation benefit would be available.
These debt schemes typically return a percentage point or two above the average indexation factor per annum. The indexation helped to make the tax basis more rational and closer to the real income.
Due to the change now brought into force, one of the leading corporations, Maruti Suzuki Ltd, has advised the stock exchanges recently that the revised scheme of taxation is impacting its deferred tax liability to the tune of an additional sum of Rs8,500mn (million)!
The reason for this, for the benefit of those who are not accountants, is that the company accounts the fair value gain due to the change in the net asset value (NAV) of the schemes it has invested in as income in its profit and loss account in each reporting period.
While so accounting the gain, it has to provide the potential tax payable when the redemption of the units takes place, as deferred tax liability.
The increase in the tax liability due to the withdrawal of the indexation benefit is estimated to be Rs8,500m which the company has to absorb in the coming quarter.
Rs8,500mn is no small change for any company.
It is actually a mind-boggling amount considering that there are less than a thousand companies in the country with an annual turnover higher than this figure!
Maruti has an investment of about Rs50,000 crore in debt mutual schemes as on 31 March 2024!
All of these may not be in the category of investments made in growth schemes before 31 March 2023. A substantial amount may be.
Approximately, about 2% of the total carrying value is eroded by the new system of taxation. The actual cost of the higher taxation on the exact quantum of the investment may be more.
This squarely gives the lie to the claim of the government that the new scheme is beneficial to the taxpayers.
It is not known how many other companies will have a similar impact. Cash surplus companies like ITC, TCS, Wipro and Infosys may have similar investments.
It is not known if any other company has quantified and intimated the stock exchanges of the impact.
The other cases where the change in law can impact adversely are companies that revalued assets like land, using the fair value concept under Ind AS.
Any upward revaluation would concomitantly involve providing for the deferred tax liability on the capital gains if and when sold.
In computing the capital gains for assessing the deferred tax impact, the benefit of indexation would have been considered.
These cases would need to be reworked and if any additional tax liability surfaces due to the elimination of indexation, the same would need to be accounted for suitably.
The auditors and the audit committee should apply their mind to this aspect as such revaluation if done in the past at the time of adopting Ind AS, it may not be obvious on the face of the present quarterly numbers!
Should, in the meantime, the auditors and the CFO (chief financial officer) have changed…!
The current finance minister had often reiterated the salutary commitment of this government against any form of retrospective taxation.
In fact, the government closed out the cases which arose in the past due to the retrospective taxes levied by the earlier government and the revenue losses were absorbed.
Why should the copybook be blotted due to a misguided idea promoted by some bureaucrat in the system?
It is quite possible the FM was not given the correct inputs as it often happens in such matters.
It is only fair the subject gets the due attention of the minister and an amendment initiated to restore the status quo ante with regard to the debt mutual funds.
It is possible that only a Maruti Suzuki and a few other random taxpayers are impacted this way.
Yet, as a principle, the government should show its resolve to stand by its solemn commitment to avoid such hardship caused by sudden changes, and earn the goodwill of the tax-paying community!
The extract of the intimation filed by Maruti Suzuki Ltd is as below.
(Ranganathan V is a CA and CS. He has over 43 years of experience in the corporate sector and in consultancy. For 17 years, he worked as Director and Partner in Ernst & Young LLP and three years as senior advisor post-retirement handling the task of building the Chennai and Hyderabad practice of E&Y in tax and regulatory space. Currently, he serves as an independent director on the board of four companies.)
If that be so, then we must have faith in the Hon. FM that she will take corrective actions, both for the citizens and for those who may have given her incorrect/incomplete inputs.
The reason is to save the banking sector.
Banks have totally failed to come out with innovative products and have not improved productivity and service in spite of the available IT infrastructure.
Senior citizens no getting inflation proof Government pension are gravely affected and helpless in the game of vote bank politics.
FM has deliberately chosen retrospective application on this important subject.