Advertisement

Budget Diaries: Jehil Thakkar- Partner and M&E Head at KPMG India, comments

?

Following the announcement of the Union Budget 2014 yesterday, Jehil Thakkar, Partner and Head of Media & Entertainment, KPMG India, commented:



“With a myriad of taxes in various forms and multifarious statutory compliances, the Media and Entertainment (‘M&E’) sector was keenly awaiting the Union Budget. The Industry hoped for simplification of the onerous tax laws and resolution of long standing tax controversies including the huge levy of entertainment tax, uncertainty surrounding withholding tax on various payments, levy of service tax as well as VAT certain transactions, etc. To this end, there are no major proposals in the Budget which are specifically relevant to the M&E sector, except for extension of the levy of service tax to all advertising mediums (other than print media).



Having said as above, there has been a major thrust in the Budget towards mitigating ongoing litigation. Some announcements in this regard include extension of advance ruling mechanism to resident taxpayers, enlarging the scope of Settlement Commission for resolving disputes, issue of clarifications to demystify controversies surrounding tax issues from time to time, etc. Also, there are several changes proposed to Transfer Pricing provisions (including applicability of APA to the earlier years), which will go a long way in curtailing litigation and providing certainty to taxpayers.”


Tags assigned to this article:
budget kpmg

Around The World

Our Publications

Advertisement