We Are Not a High Tax Government: Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is leading the government's delegation to the World Economic Forum, spoke with global investors at a session in Davos. Here are the key takeaways from Mr Jaitley's interaction.

Highlights:

• Hopeful of Passage of GST Bill in Next Parliament Session
• This government had a mandate to move fast and is moving at a rapid pace
• Low food prices have helped in maintaining low inflation
• States getting lower revenues but advantages of low oil are too many
• India's real growth potential is 9% plus. Want to take India in that direction
• If we continue to take decisions at the pace we have, India will grow much faster
• We are not a high tax government
• We have legacy issues - one in relation to stability of tax policy
• Adversarial tax policy had scared investors away
• We are coming up with non-adversarial tax policies
• We will not resort to sovereign power of retrospective taxation
• Creating procedures for advance rulings on tax liabilities
• It is not possible to eliminate subsidies altogether
• Will rationalise subsidies and not abolish them
• It is a great challenge for the government to balance the Budget
• On track to bring down the fiscal deficit target to 3% over the next couple of years
• Moving from cooperative federalism to competitive federalism
• Withdrawal of MAT is not easily possible
• Can't reduce MAT and increase income tax
• Not easy for Finance Minister to start offering rebates
• We are narrowing down the areas of differences with the US and expanding areas of cooperation