Mumbai, Feb. 12 (PTI): Industry body Assocham today said a merger and acquisition policy should be incorporated in the forthcoming budget to facilitate India Inc’s acquisitions worldwide.

Measures such as tax incentives to facilitate global acquisitions by Indian companies should be included in the forthcoming budget, the chamber said in a release here.

Assocham president Venugopal Dhoot has sent a note to finance minister P. Chidambaram in this regard, it said.

“Such measures, if incorporated in budget proposals for 2007-08, will offer a level-playing field to firms and publicly-owned companies during acquisitions,” Dhoot said.

Calling for the introduction of tax amortisation on acquired goodwill to provide fillip to the M&As, Dhoot said taxes and duties were a significant aspect of any M&A transaction and “therefore, the government should be liberal to extend fiscal incentives, encouraging domestic companies to go global.”

Meanwhile, oil and gas pipelines are expected to gain infrastructure status in budget 2007-08. The finance ministry, however, does not appear to be too keen on going in for a major restructuring of duties on petroleum products that the oil companies have been clamouring for. Infrastructure status to pipelines would bring them under the purview of Section 80 1A of the Income Tax Act, which allows for a 10-year tax holiday for investment in these projects.