JOIN USFM snaps at Kejriwal over I-T law remarks
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday hit back at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for accusing him of reducing penalties on tax evaders through the amendment to the Income Tax Act, which was passed by the Lok Sabha a day ago.
Jaitley took to Twitter to charge Kejriwal with “factually misrepresenting changes in the tax law” and asserted that there would still be a penalty of 200% for misreporting income under Section 270A of the Income Tax Act.
He made this clarification a day after Kejriwal asked why the penalty on declaration of black money “had been reduced from 200% to 10%.”
The finance minister said, “What is Section 270A? It is the ‘penalty for under-reporting and misreporting of income’. It says, among other things, that any person who has under-reported his income shall be liable to pay a penalty in addition to tax, if any, on the under-reported income.”
Jaitley also said a total of 77% tax would be imposed on cash if an individual shows it in the return, but can explain it. “Otherwise, tax on ‘unexplained’ cash shown on a return has been increased to 60% tax + 25% surcharge tax + 3% cess tax, from the earlier 30%,” he said.
In addition, he said, penalty for search and seizure has increased to 30% from the current 10-20%——“and this even if an individual admits it and shows it in their return. If they don’t show it on their return they will be charged a whopping 60% of income as penalty.”
Kejriwal had on Tuesday tweeted a series of comments against demonetisation. “First the government said it will impose a 200% penalty. After 20 days, it’s saying it will impose a 10% penalty. Have those with black money made the finance minister bend to their will and reduce the penalty?” he said.
Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi should stop making statements outside Parliament accusing the government of helping black money hoarders with the amendment to the I-T law.