ISODA Asks Finance Ministry to Simplify Taxation Policy

Infotech Software Dealers Association (ISODA), an association of packaged software dealers in India, was invited by the finance ministry for the pre budget meeting recently. ISODA gave a number of inputs on current taxation policy and also raised complexities faced by the software industry. To address the prolong issue of TDS/WHT and Double taxation on Software License, ISODA voiced the need for creating a separate category of “Trading on Subscription and Service”.

ISODA said that the “Trading on Subscription and Service” category should define comprehensively what it includes and how it is taxed in order to remove inherent ambiguity which has been creating confusion in the software industry as well as within multiple revenue authorities, the judiciary and customers.

ISODA said that the involvement of DIT/DietY as both as sounding board as well as an advisor would be beneficial for both the business community and the revenue authorities. The association said that DIT/DietY could play a crucial role in policy matters, the promotion of IT and bridging the digital divide.

Amarnath Shetty, president of ISODA said that India’s booming software industry is very optimistic about pro IT policies by the Narendra Modi led NDA government. He said that the government should bring simplicity in taxation and provide green field to indigenously develop software products.

“Government should abolish all hurdles in taxations and also introduce single window licensing for all business licensing. Removal of double taxations would bring great relief to all software vendors and will increase their productivity”, Mr. Shetty said, adding “New government should encourage the domestic software companies to develop indigenous software add-on to PM Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” initiative. The government should provide financial assistance to IT Companies to come up with their own innovations and software products.”

Along with ISODA, NASSCOM and Electronics and Software Export Promotion Council had also participated in the pre budget meeting