IT Veterans Mohandas Pai and Suresh Senapaty to start tax think tank

BENGALURU: Veterans of India’s $146-billion information technology industry, led by the likes of former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai and former Wipro CFO Suresh Senapaty, have come together to set up a think tank to advocate conducive tax policies and effective tax administration.

The development comes at a time when the Narendra Modi-led government is looking to fasttrack economic recovery by attracting more investment from overseas.

Called International Tax Research & Analysis Foundation (ITRAF), the think tank will be chaired by Parthasarathi Shome, former chairman of the Tax Administration Reform Commission.

Other founder members include former Infosys finance chief V Balakrishnan; Mukesh Butani, managing partner at BMR Legal; S Krishnan, former head of international taxation at Infosys and PV Srinivasan, former head of taxation at Wipro.

Pai, who is currently the chairman of Manipal Global Education, said that corporate India has long suffered from unclear tax norms in the country and that a think tank like ITRAF is a necessity to address concerns of India Inc and also to ensure policies that can facilitate ease of doing business with global companies. “The broad ambition is to ensure that India’s policies on taxation and international tax are contemporary, with the best-in-class global standards,” Pai told ET.