Government Receives Requests To Drop Planned Long-Term Capital Gains Tax
Government receives requests to withdraw the LTCG tax introduced through the Finance Bill, 2018.
The government has received requests to withdraw the tax imposed on long-term capital gains, as proposed in the Union Budget 2018, Minister of State for Finance, Shiv Pratap Shukla said in Parliament today.
Changes, if any, will reflect in the Finance Bill, 2018, Shukla said. The bill be discussed and passed in the current session of Parliament.
The government had brought back a tax on long-term capital gains on listed equities. In Union Budget 2018-19. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that long-term capital gains of over Rs 1 lakh will be taxed at 10 percent. However, all gains up to Jan. 31, 2018 will be grandfathered, he had added.
Market veterans had said the move would be a negative for small investors. The proposal also received flak as the securities transaction tax or STT of 15 percent is still operational. Pranav Sayta, tax partner at EY had told BloombergQuint ahead of the Budget announcement that if LTCG were to return, STT should be abolished.
Last week the Parliamentary Committee on Finance had recommended increasing the exemption limit for capital gains from listed equities to Rs 2 lakh to protect the interest of small investors.