The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money has come up with a novel suggestion to clamp down on over-invoicing or under-invoicing of goods traded by the country.
Every shipping bill/Bill of Export should have a specific entry mentioning the international market price of the goods/machineries sought to be exported, SIT said in its second report submitted to the Supreme Court few days back.
Such a move would help control the malady of black money and prevent them from getting stashed abroad, according to SIT. This suggestion is under consideration of the Modi-led Government and is likely to be implemented within short time.
The second SIT report has highlighted that mis-invoicing can be controlled if there is proper vigilance by the Customs department.
Nowadays, international prices of various goods/machineries are available on computers at any point of time, SIT report pointed out.
To control black money, SIT has also made a case for acceptance of the Data Analysis & Research for Trade Transparency System adopted by USA.
This would control over/under invoicing to some extent, SIT said.
SIT has also called for a institutional mechanism through a dedicated set up to examine mismatch between export/import data with corresponding import/export data of other countries on at least a quarterly, if not a monthly basis.
FEMA LAW CHANGE
SIT has suggested a change in foreign exchange management (FEMA) law to get over the difficulty of confiscation of any property held abroad in the case of those who had violated this law.
The FEMA should be amended to provide for seizure and confiscation of property of equivalent value within the country, if it is held that property held abroad was in violation of this law.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had recently told the Lok Sabha that certain gaps existed in the Indian laws that made it difficult for authorities here to make recoveries from those who had stashed money abroad.
He had then said that SIT was looking into this matter and that Government was awaiting recommendations on this front.