AMN /
Finance minister Arun Jaitley today said bulk of black money is within India. He said government was committed to make tax rates reasonable and create deterrence to use of unaccounted money.
In a facebook post, Mr Jaitley said high taxation regime of past encouraged tax evasion. He said compliance window declarants can sleep well and others with undisclosed foreign assets will be subjected to new black money law.
He said no society can indefinitely sustain a system where income earners consider tax evasion to be a way of life. The finance minister said, to make India a more investment friendly destination, the government in the 2015 Budget announced that the rate of corporate tax would be brought down to 25% over the next four years and most exemptions, other than those which incentivise savings, would eventually be phased out.
Mr Jaitley said the Government has formulated a conscious strategy to deal with the menace of black money. He said, a total peak balance of about Rs 6,500 cr in list of accounts in LGT Bank, Liechtenstein and HSBC, Geneva has been assessed.
He said the government has signed an understanding with the US wherein United States and India would disclose to each other any real time transaction in accounts with financial institutions, by its citizens in foreign territories.
The finance minister advocated the need a change in national attitude where plastic currency becomes the norm and cash an exception. He said, the government’s policy is rationalization of tax structures, taxing at reasonable rates, placing more money in the hands of small earners, encouraging and promoting the use of plastic money by all sections of society and creating deterrence against those who continue to use unaccounted money.