Black money and corruption are two such issues that have jolted our public life and the polity badly. The two issues are linked with each other. Traders, politicians, senior bureaucrats, officials and the go between, earn huge sums of money by dubious means through corruption and bribery. To keep that money out of the sight of the Income Tax sleuths, they stash that black money in foreign banks. Such banks are usually located in Germany, Switzerland, Mauritius and other smaller countries and islands, where black money is stashed to avoid paying tax and to save themselves from punishment.
GFI Report
According to a report released recently by a US organization, Global Financial Integrity (GFI), $104 billion worth of black money had been deposited in foreign banks between 2000 and 2008. The report was captioned, 'Illicit Finance Flows from developing countries 2000-2009'. It means that since the situation did not improve after economic reforms, some influential and highly placed person became multimillionaires at a faster pace.
Jullian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has disclosed in an interview recently, that there are names of some Indians in the list of those who have stashed their black money in Swiss Banks. He promised to publish the material soon. In an interview to a TV channel on Tuesday last, he appealed to the people in India not to lose heart because he would certainly reveal the names of those who have their accounts in Swiss Banks. He hinted that prior to revealing the names, he might seek the opinion of some expert agencies on it.
He also alleged that the Government of India is not adopting the same kind of aggressive stand as was adopted by Germany to get the names of Indians who have stashed black money there. He added that adopting a harsh stand to get the list of the account holder is all the more necessary for the Government of India because it is India, which is losing tax income more than Germany.
Double Taxation Deals
Earlier Jullian Assange had claimed that the documents regarding the account holders that had been handed over to him by Rudolph Elmer, contained names of individuals from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Asia. In short, it had names from almost all regions including traders, politicians, artists and those working in multinational companies and in corporate sector. He did not agree with the contention of the Indian Government that double taxation deals are proving a hindrance in bringing the black money back. Assange maintained that hiding the wealth is not at all related to double taxation and stashing black money in foreign banks is more damaging than corruption.
Meanwhile, on the direction issued by the Supreme Court that the government should form a special team to unearth black money, the government has informed the apex court that it intends to constitute a ten member committee to go into black money, terrorism, and drugs syndicate issues. The proposed committee is to be set up under the Secretary Revenue, which would also have senior officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate, Intelligence Bureau and the Reserve Bank of India. Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam said that the committee would start working immediately and the revenue secretary would submit a status report on the progress made by the committee, from time to time, to the Supreme Court.
Legal Action Taken
It may be recalled that the apex court bench comprising Justice B. Sudershan Reddi and Justice S.S. Najar had asked the federal government that in view of the general feeling that nothing worthwhile is being done by the government to bring the black money back, why should a special investigation team be constituted and why should not the names of those having accounts in foreign banks be revealed? Meanwhile, the government has received Rs.70 million from nine culprits who had stashed black money in the LGT Bank of Germany. The amount has been received not only by way of income tax but as fine too. Also, legal action has been initiated against six other culprits.
No comments:
Post a Comment