India’s New Tax Code Lacks Substantive Changes, Tax Pros Say

India’s proposed revamp of its decades-old income tax law includes much-needed simplification but fails to offer substantive changes for corporate taxpayers, practitioners said.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the condensed version of the income tax overhaul bill to Parliament in mid-February. Its aim is to remove redundancies and simplify complex tax provisions.

“Although some had fond hopes of radical changes being made, the Bill has significantly retained the contents of the present legislation with changes being limited only to its structure and language,” said Swaminathan Vasudevan, executive partner at law firm Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan.

Some of the changes in ...