Black money window may yield at least ₹10,000 cr more

Income declarations under the black money window is likely to rise by at least another ₹10,000 crore to ₹15,000 crore and close at about ₹80,000 crore.

There were a lot of last-minute declarations that are still being processed. On a conservative basis, there will be at least another ₹10,000 crore worth of declared income under the scheme, said senior officials familiar with the development, adding that the total declarations under the scheme may amount to about ₹ 80,000 crore.

Sources said the final figures are likely to be available by October 15, by when the declarations would have been verified. “We will be submitting the final data to the Finance Minister by next week,” said the official.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had on October 1 announced that the Income Declaration Scheme, 2016 had drawn 64,285 declarants, who in aggregate declared ₹65,250 crore of hitherto undeclared income.

The four-month long black money window — Income Declaration Scheme — which closed on September 30, allowed to people with undisclosed income in the country to come clean by paying tax, penalty and surcharge of 45 per cent of fair market value.

Finance Ministry officials also stressed that it would be unfair to compare the declarations under the window with a similar scheme in Indonesia that unearthed over $300 billion. “The two schemes are not comparable. The rate of tax under the amnesty scheme in Indonesia was a maximum of 10 per cent for the declarants,” said a top Finance Ministry official.

On Monday, the Central Board of Direct Taxes reassured complete confidentiality to those who had used the scheme.

Meanwhile, tax officials are also continuing with their crack down on tax evaders with search operations and scrutiny notices. “The search operations and investigations are separate exercises and being done independent of the IDS,” said an official.

In a recent instruction, the CBDT had noted that scrutiny notices were yet to be sent in 991 cases identified through Computer Assisted Scrutiny Selection and had asked officials to send them at the earliest.