Indian black money
[7] In March 2018, it was revealed that the amount of Indian black money currently present in Swiss and other offshore banks is estimated to be ₹300 lakh crores or US$4 trillion.
Some Indian corporations practice transfer mispricing, by under-invoicing their exports and over-invoicing their imports from tax haven countries such as Singapore, UAE, and Hong Kong.
[9] Political organizations, corrupt politicians and government officials take bribes from foreign companies then park or invest the money abroad in tax havens for transferring to India when needed.
In addition, locally earned bribes, funds and collections are often routed abroad through hawala channels in order to evade Indian tax authorities and consequent legal implications.
These are legally held by the FIIs, but derive economic benefits from fluctuations in prices of the Indian securities, as also dividends and capital gains, through specifically designed contracts.
This revision, expected to become active by January 2012, will allow the government to make inquiries of Swiss banks in cases where they have specific information about possible black money being stored in Switzerland.
[3] In February 2012, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director A P Singh speaking at the inauguration of first Interpol global programme on anti-corruption and asset recovery said: "It is estimated that around 500 billion dollars of illegal money belonging to Indians is deposited in tax havens abroad.
[27] The list which had names of dictators and international criminals, was simultaneously published by news organisations in 45 countries including The Guardian, UK; Haaretz, Israel; BBC, London.
The list of names exposed in the scandal includes 500 Indians who flouted rules and regulations, such as Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Niira Radia,[32] KP Singh, Garware family, Harish Salve, and others.
In speeches, their prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi promised to get this black money (estimated to be ₹90 lakh crores or US$1500 billion) back to India.
The department also referred a total of 477 cases to other agencies like the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to probe other financial crimes like money laundering, disproportionate assets and corruption.
[45] The court argued that the government should be more forthcoming in releasing all available information on what it called a "mind-boggling" amount of money that is believed to be held illegally in foreign banks.
[48][49] In April 2014, Indian Government disclosed to the Supreme Court the names of 26 people who had accounts in banks in Liechtenstein, as revealed to India by German authorities.
[51] But on the very next day, Supreme Court of India orders centre Government to reveal all the names of black money account holders which they had received from various countries like Germany.
[55][56][57] International tax lawyer Ashish Goel has argued that the Modi Government failed miserably to take steps to bring back black money stacked in foreign banks.
Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav furnished a letter written by Falciani on 21 August 2015, to Justice (retd) M B Shah, who is heading the SIT on black money.
[65] The HSBC Black money whistleblower Herve Falciani, who works with a team of lawyers and experts, told NDTV that there is "1000 times more information" available for investigators and there are a lot of business procedures to be unveiled to them.
[68] On 2 November 2015, Falciani told in a press conference organised by Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav that, India has not used information on those illegally stashing away black money in foreign bank accounts, and still millions of crores were flowing out.
Upon formal request by Indian and Thailand government authorities, the bank announced that the documentation supposedly corroborating such allegations were forged, and numerous media reports claiming US$8 billion in stashed black money were false.
[84][85] Today, in a later article, wrote, "Hasan Ali stands accused of massive tax evasion and stashing money in secret bank accounts abroad.
[3] After a series of ongoing demonstrations and protests across India, the government appointed a high-level committee headed by MC Joshi (the then CBDT Chairman[90]) in June 2011 to study the generation and curbing of black money.
Economists and financial analysts believe that a large percentage of black money being held in cash in India would now be brought into the mainstream economy through the banks, which would bolster economic growth over the long term.
BJP spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi had said in 2014 that "The aam aurats and the aadmis (general population), those who are illiterate and have no access to banking facilities, will be the ones to be hit by such diversionary measures.
[107][108] Even in colonial India, numerous committees and efforts were initiated to identify and stop underground economy and black money with the goal of increasing the tax collection by the British Crown government.
[110][111] The report suggests that non-tariff barriers to economic activity such as permits and licences, long delays in getting approvals from government agencies are an incentive to proceed with underground economy and hide black money.
Similar effective reforms of other vulnerable sectors like real estate, the report suggests can yield a significant dividend in the form of reducing generation of black money in the long term.
People of India find it easier to deal with real estate transactions and opaque paperwork by paying bribes and through cash payments and under-declaration of value.
[3] Other sectors of Indian economy needing reform, as identified by the report, include equity trading market, mining permits, bullion and non-profit organisations.
These voluntary schemes have been criticized on the grounds that they provide a premium on dishonesty and are unfair to honest taxpayers, as well as for their failure to achieve the objective of unearthing undisclosed money.
Senior Congress Leader Manish Tewari and political commentator Paranjoy Guha Thakurta on 13 December 2016 launched the book, which attempts to debunk "a lot of lies, unknown facts and baseless rumours about Black Money".
