Despite persistent pressure from the Supreme Court for concrete information about the black money stashed in Swiss banks and other tax heavens, the government affidavit on Wednesday revealed nothing but raised doubt about the figure quoted about the total volume of illegal money deposited by Indians abroad.
The affidavit was filed ahead of Thursday’s crucial hearing by the apex court, which had sought concrete information form the government about its action and a clear stand on disclosure of the names of Indians gathered so far from some countries.
While senior advocate Anil Diwan arguing earlier on a PIL by Ram Jethmalani and other prominent citizens on black money issue had quoted a figure of $1.4 trillion deposited by Indians in tax heavens abroad, government questioned its veracity.
The affidavit filed by revenue department joint secretary Anoop Kumar Srivastava talked more about finance ministry’s plan to improve double taxation avoidance treaties with different countries and other technicalities to plug the loopholes on the outflow of the unaccented money.
The government said the process of negotiation with 65 countries for amending the DTAA was on while it has been completed with 10 countries and agreements with 13 others had been finalised for exchange of information on unaccounted transactions. The protocol with Switzerland has also been signed to obtain banking information, which is yet to be ratified by Swiss government.
The affidavit said the previous survey on black money was done way back in 1985 by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) projecting it to be between `31,584 and `36,786 crore.
Since than no official survey had been conducted as question a question mark was raised on the 1985 study because it was mainly based on various “assumptions and approximations open to challenge”.
Although some finance experts conducted research and published the estimates of the black money, but “these studies were criticised for their numerous assumptions and approximations, therefore, the government did not conduct any fresh study so far due to the reason that credibility of any estimate was doubtful and questioned as most of the transactions, which generated black money are by their very nature unreported or complex and layered transactions,” the government said.
However, the affidavit virtually brushed aside the issue of 26 Indians’ accounts with the Liechtenstein’s LT bank, known through the information provided by Germany as the government only stated that 18 “entities or trusts” whose names contained in the list had been served notice for “tax demand with interest aggregating to RSV 24.26 crone on income of RSV 39.66 crone assessed in these cases.”
Apparently on apex court’s pressure, the government has now decided to carry out a fresh survey about the volume of black money generated within the country and abroad with the finance ministry roping in NIPFP, National Institute of Financial Management and National Council of Applied Economic Research to conduct the study with inputs form various ministries and departments.