People, who want to rid of the black money stain, will get one last chance. The Government on Friday said that under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), which will commence on December 17 and shall remain open for declarations up to March 31, 2017, people can declare their illegal wealth by paying 50 per cent tax of the total deposits.
Offering tax dodgers confidentially and immunity from prosecution under the new tax evasion amnesty scheme, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia warned of stiffer penalties as well as prosecution against non-disclosure of deposit made in banks.
“Not declaring the black money under the scheme now but showing it as income in the tax return form would lead to a total levy of 77.25 per cent in taxes and penalty,” he said, adding in case the disclosure is not made either using the scheme or in return, a further 10 per cent penalty on tax will be levied followed by prosecution.
Adhia said, “Beginning on Saturday most of the banks will have challans to be filled for depositing tax for availing the PMGKY scheme. Only after payment of 50 per cent tax and setting aside the 25 per cent of the remaining undisclosed amount for four years, a person can avail the PMGKY scheme.”
Explaining the move, Adhia told reporters that mere depositing cash in banks would not convert black money into white, but taxes have to be paid.
As per the scheme, taxes will have to be paid first and then the scheme can be availed on production of tax receipt, unlike the recent Income Disclosure (ID) scheme and other such plans wherein disclosures were made first and taxes were recovered later.
The disclosure scheme is part of The Taxation laws (Second Amendment) Act, 2016, which was approved by the lok Sabha earlier this month and has been assented by the President. “Also, as the disclosures will be kept confidential, the holder of unaccounted cash need not disclose it in Income Tax Returns forms,” he added.
After the November 8 demonetisation announcement, the Government allowed the junked Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes to be deposited in bank accounts. For those holding unaccounted cash, it offered new tax evasion amnesty scheme to come clean with 50 per cent tax chargeable on declarations and quarter of the total sum to be parked in a non-interest bearing deposit for four years.
The Government, he said, through the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) is getting data about every single deposit in bank account. Also, Income Tax, Enforcement Directorate and other investigative agencies are keeping a close watch on the information.
Adhia further said that with the help of professional agencies, a thorough analysis of all deposits that come till December 30 would be done to try and join all the dots and raids conducted so far are based on information analysis.