India issues fresh tax notice to Vodafone - report

MUMBAI (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 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. 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." 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, Royal Dutch Shell , IBM Corp and Microsoft Corp . (Reporting by Abhishek Vishnoi)