Govt slashes business tax to 22%

In a bid to revive an economy that has been on the downward trend for more than a year, the Indian Government has announced that it is slashing taxes payable by companies and manufacturers.

Profits made by Indian companies will now be taxed at a rate of 22 percent, down from 30 percent, as long as they don’t apply for other incentives or exemptions, Nirmala Sitharaman, the country’s finance minister announced Friday.

According to her, new manufacturing firms incorporated after October this year will be taxed at 15 percent instead of 25 percent, as long as they start production before March 2023.

The announcement sent Indian stock markets surging, with the country’s benchmark index, the Sensex, up more than 5 percent by Friday afternoon. India’s currency, the rupee, also rose around 0.5 percent against the US dollar.

The tax cuts will result in a 1.45 trillion rupee ($20.4 billion) drop in government revenues every year, according to Sitharaman. “The idea is that economic buoyancy will itself generate enough reasons for better revenue generation,” she said.‎The tax cuts are the latest in a series of moves by the government to try and boost India’s economic growth, which has been falling for more than a year and dropped to a six-year low of 5 percent in the quarter ended June. Major industries like automobiles and consumer goods are struggling, and hundreds of thousands of workers have been laid off in recent months.

The government has also eased rules on foreign investment and relaxed regulations that prevented companies like Apple (AAPL) from opening stores in India.

Sitharaman said boosting India’s manufacturing will mean “a lot more investment, a lot more employment generation and a lot more economic activity” in the long run.

Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst for Asia Pacific at Oanda say the tax cuts will help. “The fiscal steps by the Indian government are likely to re-energize investor interest,” he said in a research note.

India still has big problems like a banking sector saddled with a huge pile of bad debt “but this is most definitely a step in the right direction,” he added.