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During his meeting with finance minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday, Danny Alexander, the UK’s chief secretary to the treasury, brought up the issue of Vodafone’s tax dispute.
“That (Vodafone) is an ongoing issue. A lot of work is going on to resolve the issue, which regularly comes up in these sorts of meetings,” said Alexander, who has a cabinet minister’s rank.
He, however, refused to get into the details, citing “taxpayer confidentiality”.
In June, the cabinet had approved conciliation with the British telecom major under the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act to settle its six-year-old tax dispute with the Indian government. However, Vodafone wants talks under United Nations Commission on International Trade Law.
During an interaction with members of the Confederation of Indian Industry on Wednesday, Alexander sought Indian investment in the UK.
Assuring investors of a stable and friendly tax regime there. He said the headline corporation tax will be cut to 20 per cent by 2015.
“British businesses investing and trading with India have raised a range of issues. Fundamentally, they see a huge opportunity to build their business here in India,” he added.
Asked about the tax policies and administration in India, he said the UK has a very competitive tax system and businesses investing in India should also have confidence in the country’s tax regime.
Alexander indicated if the controversial visa bond scheme for countries such as India comes into place, it would be applicable to only a few set of applicants.
The UK government was planning £3,000 bond for visitors from six high-risk countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Ghana. The scheme was to discourage those who enter the UK on tourist visas and stay on illegally.
“As of now, nothing is in place. This is focused on a small portion only,” said Alexander. He added this would be helpful for those applicants who are getting rejected now because, " 90 per cent of all the applicants get visas now”.
When asked about the talks of the present coalition government coming up with a referendum on whether the UK would stay back with the EU, if gets re-elected, he said, “None of us wishes Britain leave the European Union. I am confident that it will stay with EU.”
According to him, in order to get out of the economic turmoil, countries such as Indian and the UK should expand business with countries around the world, by further opening up economies.
