"Together with the basic corporate income tax, levies such as the dividend distribution tax and the buyback tax push the overall tax rate for companies well beyond 40 per cent, which is quite high," Patel pointed out. The CII suggested the effective corporate tax be reduced to 18 per cent and all surcharges and cesses withdrawn. Assocham also pitched for tax rate cuts and cited the case of Singapore where the top tax rate is 22 per cent. Although a road map for bringing down the corporate tax rates to 25 per cent was laid out in an earlier budget, this is yet to be implemented. A plethora of tax savings schemes allows the effective income slab eligible for zero tax to be actually over Rs 4 lakh.

Source: The Telegraph December 06, 2017 19:30 UTC