India, Singapore sign revised DTAA; arrangement on identical pattern as Mauritius

New Delhi: India and Singapore have signed the third protocol for amending DTAA on Friday, informed Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. This revised arrangement is on identical patten as the Mauritius arrangement.

India will start imposing capital gains tax on investments from Singapore from April 2017 and withdraw all tax exemptions in two years after the two countries agreed to amend a decade-old treaty, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. 

With the amendments, investors based in Singapore will no longer benefit from tax exemptions on capital gains taxes. Changes to the treaty with the Asian financial centre had been widely expected. 

On 10 May this year, India had amended the Double Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) with Mauritius,on 18 November this year, DTAA with Cyprus was amended and on Friday India amended it with Singapore, informed Jaitley.

With revised DTAAs with Singapore, Cyprus and Mauritius, we have stopped round-tripping of money, said Jaitley.

After 2019, the entire capital gains tax will come to India, said Finance Minister.

He added since there have been efforts by government of India to eliminate where it can, the black money and its users in India, so revisiting of this treaty was important.