Sizeable dip in illegal Indian holdings abroad in 2 years, panic among illegal asset holder: Arun Jaitley in Gujarat

Ahmedabad: Claiming that the size of the black-money kept abroad by Indians was shrinking owing to the strict measures of the Narendra Modi government including the efforts of tax reforms, Union Finance Minster Arun Jailtley today said that there was a ‘sizeable dip’ in the illegal Indian holdings outside the country during last two years.

He also said that owing to government’s moves, there was panic among those having illegal assets outside the country.

Mr. Jaitley, during his participation in a seminar on Income Disclosure Scheme- 2016 at the Gujarat university convention hall here, said in reply to a question from the audience about the Prime Minister’s poll promise of curbing the black money after coming to power, that in the last 65 odd years very little had happened with regard to those who kept illegal assets outside the country.

He said, ” Today there is panic among people who hold illegal assets outside the country. The cumulative efforts of the last 65 years would not be even a minuscule percentage of what the government has done in last two years.’

‘The first decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi after assuming office and the first decision his cabinet took accordingly two years ago was what the UPA regime had kept pending for last 3 years. That was the constitution of SIT on black money as per the direction of the Supreme Court. We take action with regard to black money inside and outside the country in consultation with the SIT,’ he said.

He said that first action against black money holders was those 600 odd case of HSBC bank. In those matters assessment has been completed and amounted to Rs 8000 crore and a couple of hundred of prosecution have been filed. ‘They are now facing trials in the courts. Let them strife. After this, the information received through International Consortium of Journalists and Panama Papers are also being dealt strictly. These three cases were like the information that landed in our lap. Apart form these through the compliance window for the black money holders at the rate of 60 % we got Rs 4500 crore,’ the Finance Minister said.

‘According to reports there is a sizeable dip in the Indian holdings outside the country in last two years,’ he said adding that the country was taking various steps to make the real time information about the international money transactions a possibility in coming time and also to create such a mechanism which makes creation of black money inside the country virtually impossible.
‘G 20 countries which controls 85 % of the world economy are working on that, on the appeal from Prime Minister Modi a year and a half ago in its meet in Brisbane. We have also signed an agreement with the US as the first country to do so for the real time exchange of information on illegal transaction. The illegal Indian asset holders abroad are panicked,’ he said that all the government wants is the Indian tax payer to come out clean.

The Finance Minister said that the government was not being vindictive or did not want to terrorize people but want to give them opportunity to come out clean.

He said that the government however can’t let the honest tax payer to have less privilege than not so honest one who discloses his income at a later stage. ‘The then government in 1997 in the earlier version of the scheme had allowed less tax for those who declared income at a later stage thus making the regular tax payer feel cheated.

Earlier addressing the seminar he said that the government was through various experiments working towards creating an Ideal taxation regime based on digital mode in which tax payers face least difficulties. ‘Today 94 percent of the IT returns are filed through digital mode. Efforts were on to allow assessee’s to reply queries through emails,’ he said.

He said that the government want to ease the taxation process and increase the tax payers base so that its income necessary to implement several welfare schemes increases. The assessee with all the ease must understand that he should pay tax for the good of the country and not try to evade it. ‘In developed countries which provide quality life to unprivileged ones from the tax money. the avoidance and evasion of tax payment is treated as one and we are also going to take a cue from it while making the ideal tax regime,’ he said.

Chief Minister Mrs Anandiben Patel in her address expressed happiness over the first such seminar being held in Gujarat.

“Gujaratis are global traders. The state’s share in IT last fiscal was Rs 34865 crore with around 30 lakh tax payers and 1.57 crore PAN card holders. This share can increase with positive measures,’ She said.

Union Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia elaborated about the provisions of the scheme.

President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, a partner in the awareness campaign about the scheme, Mr M Devraj Reddy and Vice President FICCI Pankaj Patel were also present on the occasion.

DeshGujarat