India, May 28 -- If time travel once belonged to the realm of Marvel Avengers films, Indian tax law experimented with it (the Finance Act 2012) to overcome the Supreme Court's 2012 Vodafone order. That chapter was later rolled back, but the ghost of retrospective amendments has returned with the Finance Act 2026.

Retrospective taxation has re-entered India's fiscal discourse as a response to litigations that exposed fault lines within the Income Tax Act, 1961. Over the past decade, the tax administration sought to distance itself from the perception of "tax terrorism" and high-handedness. The Union ministry of finance introduced reforms aimed at rebuilding taxpayer confidence through transparency and accountability. Among the reforms wer...