The government’s black money chase has produced a notable achievement as the domestic black money disclosure scheme has brought out black income of around Rs 65250 crore. This means that the government will get Rs 29362 crore in tax revenues. The scheme’s four-month disclosure window period ended on September 30.
People who disclosed black money will get more time to pay the tax and penalties. The Income Disclosure scheme had a package of tax and penalty of 45% aggregate for people/entities disclosing domestic black income and assets.
The cleansing programme
The Income Discourse Scheme was the second one targeted to cleanse the economy by bringing black money under the tax net. Another one was the UFIA Scheme that tried to unearth black money stored in foreign countries.
The Income Disclosure Schemes’ Rs 65000 crore revelation is not a bad achievement compared to the just Rs 4300 crore income disclosed from the similar scheme launched for people who keeps black money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets Act 2015). At the same time, it is a below par performance compared to the previous Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme 1997.
VDIS 1997 fared better
The VDIS previous 1997 brought out Rs 30000 crore and the government got Rs 10000 crore tax revenues. Nearly 20 years have gone since then and the new income disclosure scheme’s turnover is seems to be relatively lower than the 1997 scheme considering the growth in GDP and the time value of money.
From the positive side, the domestic black money scheme has fared better than the last years’ UFIA scheme that revealed only Rs 4000 crore black money in foreign countries.
Now, with the completion of the two black money scheme, government’s legal attempts to tame black money came to an end. Altogether nearly 70000 crores black money were revealed. But estimates indicate that India’s black money is around half of its GDP. Given this huge amount, the realized amount is quite little and the fight against black money should get more punch.
