From temple donations to back-dated Fixed Deposits (FDs), from advance salaries to employees to giving loan to the poor, and from purchasing jewellery to selling them falsely- those with hefty cash have tried opting all these alternatives to offload ‘parked’ money. However, professionals have claimed that none of them were the permanent solution of avoiding the eyes of the Income Tax Department.
“Actually people with money have appeared more misguided by social media than guided by someone like us or other experts of the field. They keep on bombarding questions related to all possible ways through which they could turn all their black money into white, which is actually impossible. The fact is that the government machinery is much more researched than the imaginations of us,” said CA Akhil Poddar.
He said that people were getting trapped and were making other being trapped after demonetization of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes after November 8 by dividing their cash into various money market instruments. “Some people have reportedly tried to give their black money to temple donation boxes with a hope that it will be showed as anonymous donations. The temple was expected to get a commission and return most of it to the owner, as the government has already clarified that temple donations would be kept beyond question,” said another CA seeking anonymity.
Financial Advisor Avnish Mishra claimed that many hoarders have tried back-dated FDs in Cooperative societies, especially where a lot of accounting work was still furnished manually.
“Such Cooperative societies have come under scanner in last few days across the country with Jharkhand being no exception,” said Mishra.
Poddar said that giving loans to the poor, depositing black money in various Jan-Dhan accounts and a sudden swelling in Kids Saving Accounts were also expected phenomenon and hoarders tried all these so far. “But people forget one simple thing. Income tax queries to tax-payers have nothing to do with demonetization. The Income Tax department keeps an eye on unusual activities in any of the accounts at any given point of time. And if your money is legitimate, you had no problem yesterday and you have no problem today. So, dividing your money in different accounts and means and trying to bypass the rule didn’t work ever, nor it would work now,” said Poddar.
A banking sector expert said that the finance ministry did expect swelling in Jan Dhan Accounts, Kids Savings Accounts, Sukanya Yojna and even in PPF Accounts for some time.
“And to my best of the knowledge, finance ministry doesn’t worry much about infusing certain amount in any of the accounts where immediate or very short term withdrawal was not possible like PPF Accounts. However, none of them is a long term solution,” said the expert.