Timing of LTCG levy wrong: Hasmukh Adhia

Indian markets are trading lower following the global indices after a bull run that appears to be taking a halt, if not ended, with the announcement of Union budget 2018 on Thursday.

In the morning session, the BSE Sensex witness a gap-down opening at 34718.85, sunk to 34520.80, down by 545 points. At 12:06 hours Sensex was at 34,765.37, down by 301.38 point or 0.86 per cent, while Nifty was trading at 10,665.50, down by 95.10 or 0.88 per cent on Monday. The correction in the stock prices post the budget seem to echo the correction in the global indices which are down 1 to 2 per cent across major exchanges.

On the global front, there has been a correction with Dow at 25,520.96, down 665.75 points or 2.54 per cent, Nasdaq at 7,240.95, down 144.92 or 1.96 per cent, Hang Seng at 32,164.17, down 437.61 or 1.34 per cent, Nikkei was at 22,778.06, down by 496.47 or 2.13 per cent, KOSPI was at 2,499.57, down by 1.02 per cent.

The drop in the Indian stock market has more to do with the global correction in equity prices rather than the announcement of LTCG said Hasmukh Adhia, Revenue Secretary at a CII event on Monday. Adhia is of the view that at the most, the government can be blamed for the timing when the long-term capital gains (LTCG) tax was introduced, which seemed to have coincided with the global correction. The government expects a steady inflow of investment into equity market with revenues of Rs. 40,000 crore from LTCG tax in FY19-20, after the gains until January 31, 2018 are grandfathered.