Modi government is tough with the common man and sympathetic to the tax-cheating corporates.

Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, has said that the decision to tax Vodafone Group retrospectively, taken by the UPA 2 government, was not correct. He has also stated that the present government will not follow that policy. Jaitley said this, while talking to a packed house at the Economic Times Global Business Summit 2018, on 24-02-2018. It may be recollected that the UPA government raised a tax demand of Rs.11,000 crore on Vodafone, in connection with it’s acquisition of Hutchison Telecom. The UPA government took the stand that the Hutchison-Vodafone deal was liable for tax deduction at source (TDS) under the Income Tax (IT) Act. But, Vodafone had not deducted the tax at source, and hence, the government directed Vodafone to pay the tax. Together with interest and penalties, this amount has increased to Rs.20,000 crore. The Supreme Court subsequently quashed the demand on January 20, 2012. However, the government amended its IT Act retrospectively, putting the liability back on Vodafone Group. Tax cheating is being done by the corporates in a big way. Vodafone and Hutchison jointly cheated Indian government to the tune of Rs.11,000 crores. Now, Arun Jaitley has openly stated that the decision of the UPA government to collect the amount from Vodafone is not correct. When the Modi government is taking action to collect every single paisa tax from the common man, they want to be very ‘kind and sympathetic’ to the tax - cheating corporates.