India Budget Analysis 2017-18

The Indian Union Budget for the financial year 2017-18 ("Budget") was announced earlier in the day. The backdrop to the Budget was a fairly volatile past few months with multiple issues such as (a) demonetisation; (b) ambiguities on indirect transfer taxes; (c) treaty changes to India-Mauritius Treaty ("Mauritius Treaty"), India-Singapore Treaty ("Singapore Treaty") and India-Cyprus Treaty ("Cyprus Treaty"); (d) application of General Anti Avoidance Rules ("GAAR") from April 1, 2017 along with other macro global changes, all of which were on top of investors' minds. Given the context, the Finance Minister ("FM") has managed to maintain a fair balance between addressing concerns raised by foreign investors along with introducing further rationalization and anti-abuse provisions as part of the Budget.