Why Edelweiss Asset Management CEO Wants A Review Of Proposed Amendment To Finance Bill

Edelweiss Asset Management CEO Radhika Gupta has requested the central government to review a proposed amendment to the Finance Bill that treats gains arising from debt mutual funds as short-term capital gains.

What Happened? The Vice Chairperson of the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), Gupta, voiced her concern against the government’s proposed amendment on Twitter on Friday.

“I hope the proposed change in the Finance Bill to remove (long-term capital gains) LTCG with indexation status on debt funds is reviewed. Financialization is just happening in India and a vibrant corporate bond market needs a strong debt MF ecosystem,” tweeted Gupta.

“The success of a program like Bharat Bond and target maturity funds in the last year was just the beginning of what could have been a lot of innovation in the bond category,” added the University of Pennsylvania alum.

Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma was quick to retweet Gupta’s take adding he completely agrees with the Edelweiss MF Managing Director’s view on the proposed amendment.

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A Contrary View: Debt mutual fund investors may not be too pleased about the proposed change, however, value investor D. Muthukrishnan believes that the current government wants to tax passive income on par with active income.

“The government’s logic is that if the active income of the public is taxed at a higher percentage, why give privilege to well to do by taxing their passive income less,” he reasons.

Founder of online investment platform Fintoo, Manish. P Hingar, in a statement shared with Benzinga India, believes that the amendment spells good news for banks as they can attract customers with higher interest rates and increase their borrowing and saving book sizes.

“It is apparent that the government intends to remove tax arbitrage by creating a consistent tax policy across all debt instruments,” notes Hingar, a qualified chartered accountant.

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