Tax of $2.6 billion on deal with Hutchison unfair: Vodafone CFO

Vodafone exuded confidence that there was no tax payable on its deal for buying majority stake of Hutchison in Indian telecom firm Hutchison-Essar for over $11 billion in 2007.

Indian tax authorities have raised a demand of about $2.6 billion tax on the deal.

“The deal is not governed by Indian tax rules and consequence of that is that there is no tax that is payable...second, we would observe the party that made the profit was not us and therefore, the party that should be paying the tax is not us,” Vodafone Group CFO  Andy Halford said.