4 months to reveal black money

Can avail it by paying tax at 30%, surcharge at 7.5%, penalty at 7.5%

The government on Monday unveiled a four-month window from June for domestic taxpayers to legalise black money by paying 45% of their undisclosed income.

Announcing the measure in the Budget presented in Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said he propose a limited period compliance window for domestic taxpayers to declare undisclosed income or income represented in the form of any asset and clear up their past tax transgressions.

They could avail the scheme by “paying tax at 30%, and surcharge at 7.5% and penalty at 7.5%, which is a total of 45% of the undisclosed income,” he said. The government plans to open the window under this Income Disclosure Scheme from June 1 to September 30 with an option to pay amount  due within two months of declaration.

The surcharge levied at 7.5% of undisclosed income will be called Krishi Kalyan surcharge to be used for agriculture and rural economy.

Immunity & no scrutiny“There will be no scrutiny or enquiry regarding income declared in these declarations under the Income Tax Act or the Wealth Tax Act and the declarants will have immunity from prosecution,” he said, adding the government is also proposing Immunity from Benami Transaction (Prohibition) Act, 1988 subject to certain conditions.

Not an amnesty scheme“Our government is fully committed to remove black money from the economy. Having given one opportunity for evaded income to be declared once, we would then like to focus all our resources for bringing people with black money to books.”

Later, Jaitley told Doordarshan that this is not an amnesty scheme. “There is monumental income tax law changes which I have made... It’s not a VDIS (Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme) and it is not an amnesty,” he said.

In the last Budget too, Jaitley had come out with similar compliance window for people holding undisclosed assets abroad.