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Reliance Tax Saving Plan

Reliance Tax Saving Plan


The Gigantic Deals

Reliance Industries Limited had announced a hot streak of 14 new investors in its JIO Platforms between April to July. The fastest ever in India. The company raised a sum INR 1,52,318 crore by selling a 33% stake in JIO Platforms. So, how much tax did Reliance Industries or JIO Platforms end up paying? Let’s have a look at The Reliance Tax Saving Plan.

Shareholding Shares Held (in cr.) Value (in cr.) Stake (%)
Reliance Industries 18,055.7 180,557 67.05
Facebook Inc. 2,407.4 43,574 9.99
Google 1,863.9 33,737 7.73
Silver Lake 277.8 5,656 1.15
Silver Lake (additional) 223.3 4,547 0.93
Vista 558.2 11,367 2.32
General Atlantic 324.1 6,598 1.34
KKR 558.2 11,367 0.93
Mubadala 446.6 9,094 1.85
ADIA 279.1 5,684 1.16
TPG 223.3 4,547 0.93
L Catterton 93.0 1,895 0.39
The Public Investment Fund 558.2 11,367 2.32
Intel Capital 93.0 1,895 0.39
Qualcomm 35.9 730 0.15

source: Bloomberg

JIO’s total equity as of March 2020 comprised of

‘Other equity’ means OCPS (Optionally Convertible Preference Shares) issued to RIL. But, the stake sales were ‘not’ structured as a transfer of shares from RIL. In other words, OCPS held by RIL in JIO was not converted to equity shares for the investors. Also, dilution of earlier shareholders (except RIL) did not happen when shares were issued to new investors.

The Tax Saving Plan of Reliance

Normally these partnerships would have led Reliance to pay huge capital gains tax. JIO was incorporated in November 2019. Therefore, the gains would have been categorized as short term capital gains. JIO had a plan of becoming net-debt free. And paying these taxes wouldn’t have helped at all.

Here is what Reliance did:

Note 1: Reliance is not creating any tax liability by transferring shares to JIO Platforms according to this ITAT ruling. This ruling states that the transfer of shares to a 100% subsidiary is exempt from taxes.

Note 2: Also, according to Section 47A, ‘Reliance has to pay taxes if there’s a profit’ since ‘it is no longer a 100% subsidiary’ (after all the partnerships). But it appears that Reliance keeps reducing its stakes in Reliance Jio and still gets paid. Hence it is just getting back its investment. It doesn’t have to pay any taxes, too. The actual profit is basically sitting in the remaining 68% stake of Reliance on Jio Platforms. This leads to zero taxable profit in the transaction.

This is how Reliance got repaid a chunk (INR 1,29,046 crore) of its OCPS, thereby, reducing its net debt position. Also, JIO Platforms retained a large portion (INR 23,272 crore) of its funds for future purposes.

Sources: Thehindubusinessline, CapitalMind

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