Tax avoidance in India: A gateway of economic prevarication

Taxation has ever been an important policy field throughout history and will stay a crucial aspect in future politics since it creates the basis for the state to work. The edifice of modern market oriented economy is focused on its money-making strength and the gusto for mammon worship. This pursuit for economic wealth and capital formation often leads to misfeasance, fraud, and unfair practices, indulged in by individuals or corporate giants, commonly known as socio-economic or white-collar crimes. White-collar crimes have expanded vertically, as well as, horizontally to include, embezzlement, false advertising, bribery, unfair competition and above all tax evasion. An incessant global effort is on to contain the subversive effects of white-collar crimes especially in the field of tax evasion or tax lately tax avoidance. The present-day economic milieu based on liberalisation, open market access and trans-border transaction, though aim at reducing the tariff and non-tariff barriers, including rationalization of international taxation, stumble at the gate of phenomenal growth in tax evasion. Besides, the astonishing reality is that tax avoidance which is treated legal by almost all the countries, has turned out to be a camouflage to conceal wealth and thereby liability. There is a need to understand the basic pitfalls in the tax regime to ascertain the menacing effect of this growing phenomenon in the rubric of tax jurisprudence especially in context of India purporting to emerge as a growing economy in the 21^st century. India has come up with a New Tax Code in order to decipher the tax maneuvering and tax avoidance by corporate sector given her burgeoning role at the international level. How far the new tax regime is going to arrest the menacing effect of tax evasion or avoidance shall form the general theme of this paper.