Maruti Suzuki India chairman RC Bhargava has urged the Centre and state governments to proceed faster on the road of reforms and increase efforts to make doing business easier, while requesting all political parties to support reforms and programmes that create wealth. In his message to shareholders in the company's annual report for 2025-26, the veteran industry leader emphasised the need for accelerated reform implementation to enhance business environment.
Maruti Suzuki India has requested the central government to introduce an amnesty scheme or 'as-is' settlement option to resolve past indirect tax litigation, enabling the automobile industry to clear legacy legal hurdles and focus on growth. According to reports from Business Standard, CFO Arnab Roy emphasised that resolving historical tax disputes was critical to providing long-term certainty for businesses. He stated that with room for future growth due to GST 2.0, the government must find a 'smarter way to address the past' through either an as-is position or amnesty solution.
Roy's call for an amnesty mechanism comes as Maruti Suzuki and its wholly owned subsidiary, Suzuki Motor Gujarat, have been involved in multiple indirect tax disputes in recent years. As reported by Business Standard, in January 2024, the Gujarat Goods and Services Tax authority passed an order upholding a tax demand of ₹173.9 crore, along with a penalty of ₹17.4 crore, against Suzuki Motor Gujarat over reverse-charge GST liability on certain services for the period from July 2017 to August 2022. In October 2024, the Haryana GST Commissioner (Appeals) also upheld a tax demand of ₹139.3 crore against Maruti Suzuki for the same period.
Roy credited recent reforms under 'GST 2.0', particularly the decision to maintain a uniform tax rate for automobile parts, with boosting demand without creating supply-side bottlenecks. According to Business Standard, he said the industry has grown by 25 per cent, which itself talks about the impact of the new reforms. He requested the government to introduce a similar single-rate structure for customs duties and called for better alignment between the Companies Act and tax laws to avoid disputes arising from differing definitions.
A major demand raised by Roy was the seamless transfer of central input tax credit across different state GST registrations. As reported by Business Standard, he said companies setting up large manufacturing plants often accumulate significant tax credits at specific locations. Roy stated that at least if the central part is seamless, because ultimately it is one revenue bucket, things become much smoother and can unlock a lot of working capital that is locked into it. He added that large exporters such as Volkswagen also faced substantial accumulation of input tax credit because of the current registration-based system.
Roy called for better alignment between the Companies Act and tax laws to avoid disputes arising from differing definitions, such as the treatment of capital and revenue expenditure. According to Business Standard, he urged the government to issue clearer guidance on eligible GST input tax credits and product classification to reduce avoidable litigation. To speed up dispute resolution, he advocated expanding advance pricing agreements to cover transfer pricing, customs and GST, involving international trade partners in such agreements, and creating regular industry-government forums outside courts.
