After tax havens of the rich and powerful were exposed in the leaked ‘Panama Papers’, the Government on Monday formed a multi-agency group to monitor the exposes in this regard and said those who did not take advantage of the compliance window last year to declare illegal assets abroad will find “such adventurism extremely costly”.
A national daily, based on leaked documents of Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca, reported that over 500 Indians, including some well-known names, figure in the list of people having association with firms in tax havens.
Post the leaked ‘Panama Papers’, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the issue with him on Monday morning and on his advice, the group comprising agencies like Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), and Foreign Tax and Tax Research (FT&TR) has been set up.
“The multi-agency group will comprise various Government agencies. They will continuously monitor these (accounts) and whichever accounts are found to be unlawful, strict action as per existing laws will be taken,” Jaitley said.
Meanwhile, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money also said it will probe thoroughly the reported secret list exposed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The leaked ‘Panama Papers’ alleged to have names of actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, DlF owner KP Singh and nine members of his family, promoters of Apollo Tyres and Indiabulls to
Gautam Adani’s elder brother Vinod Adani.
The report said Onkar Kanwar, chairman of Apollo Group, and his family members floated an offshore entity in British Virgin Islands in 2010 and two trusts in 2014.
Reacting to it, an authorised spokesperson for the Kanwar family said, “India lawfully permits foreign investments in accordance with certain regulations. Any investment abroad, that the Kanwar family may have, is in due compliance with Indian laws, where applicable, including making disclosures wherever required.”
Meanwhile, an AFP report from Panama said the massive leak of 11.5 million tax documents has exposed the secret offshore dealings of around 140 political figures globally including aides to Russian president Vladimir Putin, world leaders and celebrities including football star lionel Messi.
The Finance Minister said after the revelations, more names may come out in the next few days.
“I welcome this investigation. I think it is a healthy step that these kind of exposes are being made. I have been repeatedly saying that the world is now going to increasingly become more transparent, countries are cooperating with each other and slowly all this information is going to come out as a result of various global initiatives which have been launched,” he said.
Stating that the ‘Panama Papers’ give details of accounts and assets held by some Indian entities in Panama, Jaitley said this is the fourth collective bunch of such information and investigation that have been made.
“The first related to liechtenstein accounts against all people involved in that prosecutions have already been launched.
“Assessment orders have been passed. Then details came in 2011 with regard to HSBC account holders. 569 out of those account holders have been traced. 390 were illegal and already 154 set of prosecutions have been filed,” he said.
The Minister further said that detailed assessment orders have led to the discovery of illegal assets worth around Rs 6,500 crore.