New Delhi: Income Tax Department’s notices to some global fund houses over alleged under-reporting of incomes may potentially lead to further outflow of funds from Indian markets, analysts said.
According to a report, the tax authorities have reopened old assessments of a few global fund houses and private equity funds.
The FII/FPIs sold stocks worth Rs 3,361 crore on the BSE, the NSE, and the MSEI in the capital market segment, according to the provisional data released by the BSE.
Besides, concerns over the new Covid-19 variant also resorted to some sell-off in the Indian market, analysts said.
“Any new tax requirement on such old investments could pose a problem for fund houses, as they may be unable to recover taxes and penalties from investors who have already left the fund. Also, investors planning to park their funds in Indian fund houses would become more cautious now,” said Likhita Chepa, Senior Research Analyst at CapitalVia Global Research.
The reported notices to fund houses are worth Rs 300 crore.
“In times like this, such issuances of notices may be considered to be adding to the uncertainty and hence bottoming out of the market may take time,” said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities.
“Having said that the amount involved as per reports is around Rs,300 cr, which is not large if global funds find India attractive to invest from a medium term perspective.”
However, Akshat Garg, Manager, Research at Investica, said: “As per my opinion, there is no good reason for the global fund houses to pack their bags and fly back to the west and miss the enormous opportunities in an emerging market like India can deliver.”
