new delhi minister of commerce and industry nirmala sitharaman has termed the upa governments move to impose retrospective tax as tax terrorism while emphasising that the modi government would squarely address the issue to send out the right signals to foreign investors speaking to toi sitharaman said during the consultations for the preparation of the budget the finance minister has been reminded of this concerns related to tax disputes many repeated the word tax terrorism the fm is completely seized of it and he did agree that we have to be fair in tax practices to ensure that we dont give the wrong signals while expressing her views on a wide range of issues the minister highlighted concerns about free trade agreements fta which is said to have adversely affected domestic manufacturing and allowing fdi in ecommerce which many view as allowing fdi in retail through the backdoor she also stressed on renewed trade and business engagement with china and the us however her special emphasis was on the deleterious impact of retrospective tax on foreign investor sentiments she said that one step i am a not even naming it has done so much damage and therefore we have to be extremely cautious that we dont do any such thing during pranab mukherjees term as finance minister the government had amended the tax laws retrospectively to slap a rs 13000crore tax demand on vodafone after the supreme court rejected an earlier move there are several other disputes that the tax department is embroiled in ranging from shell to nokia against which investors have complained possibly to talk down expectations of a miraculous economic recovery sitharaman said the economy was in terrible shape and the treasury is completely wiped out reducing the headroom for the government to boost spending to revive growth the minister who is finance minister arun jaitleys deputy in north block asserted that the government will try and boost fdi to supplement domestic efforts through a policy that is nuanced calibrated and sectorspecific while she spelt out her support for fdi in defence and railways sitharaman acknowledged concerns over allowing fdi in businesstobusiness ecommerce this concern of fdi in ecommerce being fdi in retail through the back door has been expressed by a lot of people and that is a very serious concern because it also links up to the concerns which have been expressed about fdi in multibrand retail certainly with both sides heard we are going to discuss both with the finance ministry to understand actually where the threads lie and only then a call will be taken at the moment nothing has been decided on ithere is the full text of nirmala sitharamans interview q is manufacturing in a really bad shapea no doubt first that the economy is in a terrible shape is felt by every sector and it is felt right down to the bottom there is just no second though that the economy is in a state of