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Indian mining, steelmakers' operating costs might rise after top court ruling, says Fitch Rankings

Indian metal and mining business' operating expense are most likely to rise significantly if state governments enforce additional mining taxes in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling, Fitch Rankings stated in a note on Monday.

India's top court late last month supported the right for state governments to levy taxes on minerals extraction and last week allowed them to do so restrospectively, dating back to April 1, 2005. The taxes would be paid over a duration of 12 years in instalments beginning with April 1, 2026, the court ruled.

The case followed a long-running dispute in between Indian states and the federal government over states' right to impose taxes on minerals.

We see increased threats from a continual weakening of the companies' EBITDA (Revenues before Interest, Tax, Depreciation, and Amortisation) margins due to the prospective levies, Fitch Ratings said.

The rating agency stated the credit risk from potential levies would be higher for Tata Steel than for JSW Steel.

We believe Tata Steel Limited's (TSL, BBB-/ Negative) low ranking headroom exposes it to higher credit dangers from the effect of prospective taxes compared to JSW Steel Limited, Fitch stated.

The score agency stated steel and mining companies were more at threat from state-imposed taxes than other sectors such as power and cement business operating in the mining industry.

Metal and mining business have actually restricted capability to hand down the potential increase in operating costs, as their items track worldwide costs, Fitch stated.

The impact of the court ruling would slowly end up being clearer over the next couple of quarters, Fitch said, including it was not yet known whether individual states would step up requests for unpaid or enforce extra taxes.

Recently, brokerage Macquarie said the retrospective tax levy would strike state-run Coal India, which and Tata Steel the most among metals and mining companies.

(source: Reuters)