India may announce overseas listing rules in next budget

India may announce rules allowing companies to list overseas in the next budget in February, as some issues are yet to be resolved and are under discussion, Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj said on Wednesday.

"Direct overseas listing for companies continues to be under discussion, we also need to ensure success of such issues," the Revenue Secretary said.

A Reuters report had suggested that India would take around six months to announce rules allowing companies to list overseas, taking longer than some expected as the finance ministry irons out issues related to taxation.

Two senior government officials had told Reuters that the rules will only be announced with the February federal budget as there was no decision yet on how the government should tax big investors and retail traders when they trade Indian companies listed abroad.

A key concern, as per the report, is to ensure that big venture capital and foreign investors pay an equal long-term capital gains tax, roughly around 10 per cent, even if they exit an Indian company listed on foreign bourses like Nasdaq.

Another concern the government was trying to address was whether it can garner tax from foreign retail investors trading in an Indian stock listed abroad, but it has decided to exempt such transactions, the report added.