Relaxation in conditions of special taxation regime for offshore funds

Section 9A of the Act provides for a safe harbour in respect of offshore funds. It provides that in the case of an eligible investment fund, the fund management activity carried out through an eligible fund manager located in India and acting on behalf of such fund shall by itself not constitute business connection in India of the said fund. Further, an eligible investment fund shall not be said to be resident in India merely because the eligible fund manager undertaking fund management activities on its behalf is located in India. The benefit under section 9A is available subject to the conditions provided in sub-sections (3), (4) and (5) of the said section.

Sub-section (3) of section 9A provides for the conditions for the eligibility of the fund. These conditions, inter-alia, are related to residence of fund, corpus, size, investor broad basing, investment diversification and payment of remuneration to fund manager at arm’s length.

Various representations were done by the taxpayers for relaxing certain conditions in the implementation of regime of fund managers. To give an impetus to fund management activities in India, certain constraints are now proposed to be removed by suitably amending section 9A of the Act, so as to provide that, –

1. i) the corpus of the fund shall not be less than one hundred crore rupees at the end of a period of six months from the end of the month of its establishment or incorporation or at the end of such previous year, whichever is later; and
2. ii) the remuneration paid by the fund to an eligible fund manager in respect of fund management activity undertaken by him on its behalf is not less than the amount calculated in such manner as may be prescribed.

These amendments will take effect retrospectively from 1st April, 2019 and shall apply to the assessment year 2019-20 and subsequent assessment years.