Black money: Govt revises upward disclosures to Rs 4,147 crore from Rs 3,770 crore

New Delhi: The 90-day blackmoney compliance window declarations were Monday revised upwards to Rs 4,147 crore, from which tax receipts are expected to be over Rs 2400 crore, even as government warned that it will go after those who have not come clean.

The revision, disclosed by Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia to media, takes the declaration figure from Rs 3,770 crore through 638 declarations, which was put out in public domain by the finance ministry on Thursday.

Adhia said while the total number of disclosures remained the same at 638, the total illegal foreign assets brought to book stands at Rs 4,147 crore.

The government's total tax receipt from the black money declared during the window is expected to be Rs 2,488.20 crore--at 30 percent tax and 30 percent penalty.

"It is the risk they have taken...We would be going after them," Adhia said while answering questions on government's action plan to deal with those who did not disclose their overseas assets during the 90-day compliance window that ended on September

The earlier disclosure of Rs 3,770 crore of black money declared through the compliance window was based on a preliminary count of the declarations made, Adhia said.

After taking into account the declarations that came in envelops, the total amount comes to Rs 4,147 crore. He said the envelops were counted but the declarations in them were not reflected in the October 1 figure.

The one-time 90-day compliance window provided to holders of undeclared foreign assets ended September 30. It gave an opportunity to foreign assets holders to declare assets, pay a total of 60 percent tax and penalty and escape stringent provisions of the new black money law.

He said under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), signed with the US, India has already started getting information. "Wealth of information has come from US," he said. 

Talking about steps to unearth overseas black money held by Indians, Adhia said: "Whatever information we have got from whatever sources so far, we have been assessing them, we have been putting penalty on them, we have been filing prosecution."

Referring to the information relating to HSBC Bank, he said 132 prosecutions have been filled in 43 cases.

"So a lot of action is happening in case of information which is already received by us," he said, adding the tax demand of Rs 4,562 crore has been raised with regards to HSBC cases.

In terms of requesting information on specific cases from other countries, Adhia said the number of such requests has almost doubled as about 1,600 such requests were sent in 2014-15 compared to 800 in the previous year.

Adhia further said that once the multilateral arrangement on Common Reporting Standards (CRS) comes into effect from 2017, "we will really get a big shot in our pursuit of finding out black money which is lying abroad".

More than 50 countries have already signed the arrangement.

"Some countries have already agreed to be the early adopters of this (CRS)...India is one of the early adopters. So from 2017, many countries will agree to give regular flow of information about the accounts of other countries nationals in their bank accounts," Adhia added.

The Secretary further said India has already got "wealth of information" from the US under the FATCA, which came into operation from October 1.

In terms of requesting information on specific cases to other countries, Adhia said the number of such requests has almost doubled as about 1,600 such requests were sent in 2014-15 compared to 800 in the previous year.

"So we are actually making a lot of request for information to other countries, where specific instances of tax evasion or tax avoidance are found. And we are working on assessing them, putting penalty, prosecution what ever is required on them," the Secretary added.

When asked whether to the response to the black money compliance window was lukewarm, he said the government had not fixed any target under it.

"Well I don't think we had any target against which we can evaluate this response as lukewarm or very good," he said, adding the window was an opportunity for people to come clean.

The compliance window provided to holders of undeclared foreign assets. It provided an opportunity to foreign assets holders to declared assets, pay a total of 60 percent tax and penalty and escape stringent provisions of the new law.