



Tax trouble: The Indian Supreme Court’s Tiger Global judgement could potentially put foreign investors off
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Supreme Court judgement in the case of Tiger Global’s tax liability has, contrary to expectations, gone against the assessee and in favour of India’s revenue authorities. The brief facts are as follows.
In 2009, Tiger Global, a private equity firm, had invested in the Singapore-based holding company of e-commerce major Flipkart, and then increased its exposure over the next two years to about $1 billion—a 20% stake. In 2017, it began monetizing its investment by selling part of its holding to SoftBank Group, and in 2018, it sold most of its shares to Walmart. This sale triggered the tax dispute.
The holding structure was complex. It was Tiger Global Mauritius (TGM) that held equity in Flipkart Singapore, which in turn had a stake in Flipkart India, and what was sold to Walmart in 2018 was TGM’s stake in Flipkart Singapore. As such, this was not a sale of a company in India.
In this, it offers a parallel with the Vodafone case; in 2007, Hong Kong-based Hutchison Group had sold its stake in overseas holding firms (including one in Mauritius) that controlled Hutchison Essar in India to UK-based Vodafone. In TGM’s case, though, the sale was by a Mauritius firm of a Singapore firm valued for e-commerce operations in India. Article 13 of an India-Mauritius tax treaty offered a capital gains exemption for many years, starting from 1992, till it was amended in 2016 (with effect from 1 April 2017).
The historical background matters. In 1991, India had to reform its economic policies after running short of foreign exchange. New Delhi liberalized rules for foreign investment inflows.
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