Retrospective tax not helping government image: Cairn Energy CEO

Image courtesy: www.cairnenergy.com

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Cairn Energy CEO Simon Thomson on Friday said that the retrospective tax issue is not helping government image, as per a news report in the Economic Times.

Cairn, which gave India its biggest onland oil discovery that now accounts for a fifth of the country's oil production, will press ahead with the arbitration challenging use of a legislation to tax internal business reorganisation with retrospective effect and will seek USD 1 billion in damages, Simon had earlier told news agency PTI.

International investors want the Modi government to walk the talk on resolving retrospective tax issues and send a clear signal that things are changing under the new dispensation.

Although, wooing investors with promise of an easier business environment and stable tax regime, Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Saudi Arabia visit last month had said retrospective taxation has been made a thing of the past but he is "not able to do anything" on two cases inherited from the previous government as they are "sub-judice".

The major retrospective tax disputes include those involving Vodafone and Cairn.

With PTI Inputs