Long-term capital gains on sale of listed shares has now been exempt from tax for more than 10 years, since it was implemented in October 2004. The exemption applies in cases where the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) has been paid, and therefore effectively applies to all transactions of sale of listed shares on a recognised stock exchange. In recent years, the scope of the exemption has been effectively extended to a couple of more types of transactions, not by amending the provision governing the exemption, but by bringing the transactions within the net of STT. One such type of transaction is the public offer for sale of shares. A public offer could be of two types (or a combination of these two)—one, an offer where the company issues shares to the public by allotting new shares, and second, an offer made by the existing shareholders of the company (which may be promoters, venture capital funds, private equity funds, or others) to the public of existing shares held by them in
Pre IPO | Private Equity | Unlisted Shares