A Salve for a Taxing Moment
No case in corporate history has evoked as much interest as the Vodafone tax case. For the first time in the history of free India, the Indian tax authorities were going after a fat-pursed multinational that had bought a business in India. The Indian Income Tax Department wanted Vodafone to pay taxes since it also involved the sale of an Indian asset. The Vodafone management was baffled as there was no precedent for this anywhere in the world. They took the issue straight to the court and later hired Harish Salve, one of the top lawyers in the country, to represent them. This is the inside story of how Salve saved the telecom company Rs. 2,500 crore.