The Modi government’s declaration window under the new Black Money Act, which ended on Wednesday, saw all of 638 declarations worth Rs.3,770 crore, according to an official release. This amount is Rs 2,800 crore less than what Prime Minister Narendra Modi had declared he would recover, during his Red Fort speech on Independence Day, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said. Mr. Modi had promised to recover Rs.6,500 crore immediately. “It is the question of what was promised…
Mr. Modi promised to bring back Rs. 80 lakh crore, within 100 days, he said. “The biggest promise was Rs. 15 lakh would be deposited in every citizen’s bank account…. Amit Shah now says this was only a jumla (platitude)… On Mann Ki Baat, the Prime Minister says he doesn’t know how much black money is out there. It means the person who misled the nation must apologise,” he told The Hindu.
Meanwhile, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia told reporters: “Whatever has come, we accept it and now onwards, we will start the action against those people who have not declared any asset and about whom the information will come to us”.
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He also reiterated that those who had declared their foreign assets must pay tax at the rate of 30 per cent and a penalty of 30 per cent by December 31, 2015. In future, those who are found with undeclared foreign assets or incomes will have to pay a combined tax and penalty of 120 per cent of the value of that income or asset.
The wheel has turned full circle, Mr. Surjewala said. “When the Congress was in power, both Mr. Mukherjee and Mr. Chidambaram started black money treaty and double taxation avoidance agreements. On account of secrecy, different laws in different countries turned out to be bottlenecks in sharing information with us. When we talked about that in Parliament, Union Finance Minister [now] Arun Jaitley used to mock us. Now, they are giving the same reason.”
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