The government on Friday offered one last chance to black money holders to deposit junk currencies until the end of March 2017, and clean up by paying 50 per cent on the bank deposits. The new tax scheme Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY,) which commenced on 17, December, ensures that the information of tax dodgers is kept confidential and offers immunity from being prosecuted. A total levy of 77.25 percent in taxes and penalty will be laid on black money holders if the black money is showed as income in the tax return and not declared under the new scheme.
Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said, “Beginning tomorrow 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 percent of the remaining undisclosed amount for 4 years, a person can avail the PMGKY scheme.”
In the recent Income Disclosure Scheme, disclosure was made first and taxes were recovered later. As per the new scheme, one will have to pay the taxes first and only then will be eligible to avail the scheme.
Adhia said, “We have information from Financial Intelligence Unit regarding how much deposits have been made in the dormant account, (zero-balance) Jan Dhan, urban cooperative bank, how much repayment of loans have been made in cash, RTGS transfers, withdrawal and hence I-T department has been successful on raids”.
He also said that the raids conducted so far have been made with the help of professional agencies.
Adhia added, “We want people to come forward and declare on their own unaccounted cash/deposit. The moment all the deposits come by December 30 we will analyze the voluminous data that we get. We would scrutinize all the data in a non-intrusive manner so that the fear of ‘Inspector Raj’ is not there in the minds of people”.
The new scheme will now be helpful in eradicating corruption to a certain extent and also prevent from corruption taking place in the future.
