Finance minister P Chidambaram has excluded some of the major relaxations in the General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) he had announced in January from the Finance Bill 2013-14 for greater flexibility in modifying them.While approving the recommendations of the Shome panel that reviewed GAAR to make it more acceptable to investors, Chidambaram had said on January 14 that the anti-tax avoidance rules will be applied on business arrangements only if the tax benefit sought was R3 crore or more.The minister had also agreed that GAAR will not be invoked to deny tax benefit on investments made before August 30, 2010.Mauritius-based Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), who hold listed securities in India, were thus assured that they will not be asked to pay short term capital gains tax of 15% when they sell such assets after GAAR comes into force in April 2016. However, the two decisions are not part of the Finance Bill, 2013.

Source - http://www.financialexpress.com