Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday asked law enforcement agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to use their penalising powers “expeditiously” in cases of non-compliance of laws for tax payments.
Speaking at the Enforcement Day function here, he termed money laundering, round tripping, tax evasion and creation of shell companies as a serious offence as the money meant for eduction, healthcare, rural development is being taken away.
“Once we are able to make an example of some of these offenders, I think others will realise the benefits of compliance of law,” he added.
Jaitley said, “If you visit the developed world, violations are rare, but those who violate are strictly called upon and answerable to the law. There are strict penal consequences. Despite being conventional in their societal attitude, Indians have never considered non-compliance with taxation and currency law as ‘morally improper’, and instead it was considered as a “smart” act.” And that is what leads to excessive dealing with cash economy, excessive non-compliance.”
He hoped the ED will “strictly enforce the law in our endeavour to raise legitimate revenue which is in larger public interest which can only be achieved by ensuring voluntary compliances of people”.
Jaitley said, “There is an expectation of compliance and in the event of non-compliance, there is the power of penalising that the ED has. This power has to be expeditiously used whenever violations are detected.”
He said while the government has given citizens the right to deal in foreign exchange with a sense of trust, serious offence of money laundering, including using hawala channels, flight of capital out of the country, round tripping of funds and creation of shell companies to avoid taxes have become a “very standardised practice”.
Jaitley said these violations are not difficult to detect and scrutiny of filing with registrar of companies can also lead to the detection.
Published 29 April 2017, 19:01 IST