India issues fresh tax notice to Vodafone - report

MUMBAI, April 19 (Reuters) - Indian tax authorities have issued a fresh notice to Vodafone Group Plc seeking re-assessment of tax returns for assessment year 2009-2010, news channel ET Now reported on Saturday (Shenzhen: 002291.SZ - news) citing sources familiar with the development.

The government in January said it would not appeal a regional court ruling in favour of Vodafone in a long-running dispute under which the taxmen had accused a unit of the British telecoms firm of under-pricing shares in a rights issue.

Vodafone has 30 days to respond to the fresh notice, the news channel's report said. (http://bit.ly/1JUMvap)

However, Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in comments carried by Business Standard newspaper, said: "Barring a case that is pending under that law (Income Tax Act) or another case that has arisen now, I think we've put most issues to rest, as far as retrospective legislation is concerned." (http://bit.ly/1EZM9Q7)

Modi's government has sought to move towards a tax-friendly regime to boost much-needed foreign investment and reduce the tax battles that during the last government embroiled multinationals including Vodafone Group (Swiss: VOD.SW - news) , Royal Dutch Shell (Xetra: R6C1.DE - news) , IBM Corp and Microsoft Corp. (Reporting by Abhishek Vishnoi)