Indian Govt Collects 17 Crores From Black Money Tax, Penalty
Earlier this year the Indian government had to deal with the forex scam and also launched an initiative to crack down on black money that was stashed away in India and overseas.
The government pushed its Black Money Rules, 2015 and offered a one-time compliance window for individuals and corporations to declare their full earnings or any money that they had previously stashed away.
The 90 day compliance window which was from the 1st July to 30th September 2015 gave people the opportunity to escape punishment by declaring all assets and paying a 60 percent tax and a penalty.
The new Black Money rules have strict consequences as the government wants to significant reduce the amount of black money reserves that are usually stashed away overseas.
The taxes and penalties on the disclosed black money needs to be paid before the end of the December 2015.
The government recently announced that till the 26th of November, it had so far collected a total of 16.69 crore rupees in taxes and penalties from those who have come forward to declare their black money. There were a total of 635 declarations made during this compliance window and a total of 4,160 crore rupees in black money assets were revealed. Based on reports of the amounts of black money stashed away overseas, the response so far has not been very encouraging.
The government expected a higher number of declarations to be made and also believed that it would bring in a lot more revenue in black money taxes and penalties. Some government officials have alleged that the lack of disclosures is mainly due to the fact that there is a lack of trust on keeping these disclosures and personal information confidential.
The Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha responded to these allegations and stated that the government had set no target for the amount of money it expected to collect under the newly imposed Black Money act. In a statement, Sinha said
Inference of poor response does not appear to emanate out of the available facts. The Central Board of Direct Taxes… had also clarified that the information in respect of declaration made was confidential as in the case of return of income filed by assesses.
Sinha also stated that the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 includes provisions of Section 138 of the I-T Act ensures that the disclosure of information is regulated.
