Black money declaration: Rs 65,250 crore stash is record disclosure

NEW DELHI: Suspected tax dodgers declared Rs 65,250 crore of undisclosed incomes and assets in India as the Centre’s four-month compliance window ended on Friday, yielding Rs 29,362 crore to the government in taxes.

Half of this tax revenue will accrue this fiscal itself, and will be spent on public welfare schemes, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday.

Black money declarations under the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) will go up once all the online and manual filings of undisclosed assets are compiled.

The government did not name any of the 64,275 declarants. The Centre had offered a one-time chance to holders of untaxed incomes and assets to escape prosecution by coming clean and paying — in installments by September 30, 2017 — tax, penalty and cess totalling 45 per cent of the assets disclosed.

Private wealth management firm Ambit Capital in a report in May 2016 estimated India’s black economy at Rs 30 lakh crore. This will mean the current declarations are just 2.17 per cent of the total hidden wealth in India.

“I think it is a good figure.... This money will go to the Consolidate Fund of India, and will be collectively used for public welfare,” Mr Jaitley said.

Reports said that the highest declarations under the scheme launched on June 1 came from Hyderabad, followed by Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the outcome of the scheme “successful”.