PTI

WASHINGTON

SEEKING to allay apprehensions on the proposed retrospective tax amendment, Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said India is ready to address concerns of the American businesses within its legal framework.

“Our policies are transparent ... whenever there is any misapprehension, we are ready to listen to then and readjust it when it is necessary.

“Therefore, we are not having any fixed mind with respect to a particular issue, but what is to be done has to be done within the legal system and legal framework,” he said at a thinktank here responding to the concerns of the US industry.

“They (US businesses) have some doubt whether the tax regime in India is stable or not.

It is stable. Even the current amendment, which is being debated, I have explained it that the nature of the amendment, which I have introduced, is of clarificative nature and not substantive amendments in thecontents of the law,” he said.

“One question comes to the mind that when you are giving retrospective effect to the law from the date of enactment of the Income Tax Act, 1962, can the income tax cases be opened since 1962, the answer is no.

“Because there are other provisions in the Income tax Act itself, according to which no case can be reopened which is more than six years old,” he said.