The future of Nokia’s Chennai based factory has become even more dim today. On Friday, Nokia received a new 300 million euro ($414) sales tax bill from Tamil Nadu, which is one of the 28 states of India. Nokia was quick enough to call this claim “absurd”.
Nokia says that it has been accused by Tamil Nadu state government of selling the phones it produced in Chennai plant in India. According to Tamil Nadu court, since the phones were sold in India and not exported overseas, Nokia is required to pay the tax.
The authorities in the southern state say that had Nokia exported the phones from India, it wouldn’t have been subjected to any tax fine – since products exported from India are exempt from tax.
“Nokia considers the claim to be completely without merit and counter to domestic tax laws,” a company spokesman said. Nokia also said that this case won’t affect its 7.2 billion USD buyout deal to sell its devices and services division to Microsoft.
Nokia confirmed that the deal will be closed by the end of this month. We can likely expect the announcement at Microsoft’s BUILD 2014 developer conference, scheduled from April 2nd to April 4th.
