FI heads desire end to tax irritants

NEW DELHI: Financial services players on Friday made a strong pitch for measures to promote investment in the forthcoming budget, central to which they said is the rationalisation of taxes by doing away with fringe benefit tax (FBT) and securities transaction tax (STT). They also asked the finance minister to hasten disinvestment of public sector units.

Outlining their proposals, officials of banks, insurance companies, financial sector regulators and other financial services players sought measures that would promote investment in various sectors such as infrastructure and agriculture.

���We have asked the government to remove fringe benefit tax and securities transaction tax, ensure tax pass-through status for all venture capital funds to encourage entreprenuership in the country and to boost the overall sentiment,��� Kotak Mahindra Bank vice-chairman and MD Uday Kotak.

ICICI Bank CEO and MD Chanda Kochhar said: ���All of us were of the consensus that this is the time to promote growth in the country and therefore this is the time to promote investment in various sectors in capacity building, in infrastructure, in agriculture and so on.��� Irda chairman J Hari Narayan wanted further tax incentives for savings while National Housing Bank CMD S Sridhar sought a fillip to publicly-funded mortgage guarantee funds from the FM.