this story originally appeared in on apr 27 2012new delhi india is likely to take the sting out of a controversial law seeking to crack down on tax avoidance by exempting small firms and individuals and stretching out its implementation over several months in an attempt to calm jittery foreign and domestic investorsthe finance ministry is considering exempting transactions or taxsaving arrangements less than rs 15 crore to ensure only corporate structures of significant size come under the ambit of the new regime known as the general antiavoidance rules gaarit is also considering implementing gaar after several months or even in the financial year beginning april 1 2013 a ministry official said this will enable stakeholders to exhaustively debate the new rules which will spell out how gaar is to be implemented and also enable investors to restructure their businesses to bring them in line with the changed tax codethere are many options on the table that are being considered we are looking at specifying a threshold to ensure that small firms and investors dont need to worry the finance ministry official addedofficials said a final decision will rest with finance minister pranab mukherjee if there are to be any changes mukherjee will announce them when he replies to the debate on the finance bill in parliament in the first week of maya senior finance ministry official said the government had held extensive discussions with foreign institutional investors and indian industry the finance ministry was receptive to the idea of tweaking the rules to allay investor concerns the official saidgaar which was proposed in the budget can deny tax benefits if a tax official feels the sole purpose of a particular arrangement is to reduce tax liabilitythe rules proposed to be implemented from april 1 2012 have unnerved foreign investors particularly portfolio investors who route money into the country through mauritius to benefit from capital gains tax exemption under the indiamauritius tax treaty they have also provoked strong reaction from domestic industry as many feel that tax officials will question every transactionsome policymakers within the government are also of the view that the immediate priority is to boost the investment climate such tax rules are required but enough comfort needs to be given to investors instead of creating more uncertainty when uncertainty already prevails in the global economic situation a government official said the proposed tweaks are still being debated by finance ministry bureaucrats and no final decision had been reached according to officials in the know a section of north block is proposing that the implementation of the new regime should start from the next financial year though others feel investors have had enough time to make adjustments as the new direct taxes code had proposed these changes two years ago those in favour of delaying the implementation are citing the example of the uk where a similar regime proposed by chancellor george osborne in the budget presented recently will be implemented next year implementing gaar without publishing threshold