Government to take final view on GAAR shortly: Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI: Government will shortly take a call on the controversial tax proposal, General Anti-Avoidance Agreement, which was deferred till April 2015 by the UPA regime, Finance Ministry Arun Jaitley today said

"I must confess, I have not yet gone into the whole issue (of GAAR) because we were busy with the Budget exercise but I now intend spending sometime and then the Government will take a final view as to what we are to do with the proposal which is already pending," Jaitley said while replying to the debate on Finance Bill in the Lok Sabha.

Introduced in 2012 by the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, GAAR created widespread concerns among foreign and domestic investors. They expressed apprehensions that the provision gives unbridled powers to taxmen to check evasion of taxes.

Responding to comments of former Petroleum Minister and Congress leader Veerappa Moily on the Budget 2014-15 proposals, Jatiley said: "Moily Saheb is right when he says extra aggression sends a wrong signal in the matter of tax collection.

"I was surprised when I found that Moily Saheb himself was a little critical of GAAR because it was sending a fright signal amongst tax payers."

Following uproar by the industry, the UPA government had postponed implementation of GAAR by two years to April 1, 2015.