Tax authorities in India have issued a fresh notice to Vodafone Group seeking re-assessment of tax returns for assessment year 2009-2010, sources said. The government in January said it would not appeal a regional court ruling in favour of Vodafone in a long-running dispute under which the taxmen had accused a unit of the British telecoms firm of under-pricing shares in a rights issue.
Vodafone has 30 days to respond to the fresh notice, a news channel report said.
However, India's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: "Barring a case that is pending under that law (Income Tax Act) or another case that has arisen now, I think we've put most issues to rest, as far as retrospective legislation is concerned." Modi's government has sought to move towards a tax-friendly regime to boost much-needed foreign investment and reduce the tax battles that during the last government embroiled multinationals including Vodafone Group, Royal Dutch Shell, IBM Corp and Microsoft Corp.
