Rs 14,820 crore tax demand raised under black money law, says govt

The government on Monday said it has raised a tax demand of Rs 14,820 crore after completing assessment in 368 cases under the black money law dealing with undisclosed foreign income.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in the cases related to deposits made in unreported foreign bank accounts in HSBC, undisclosed income of more than Rs 8,468 crore have been brought to tax and penalty of over Rs 1,294 crore has been levied.

The minister further informed the House that 648 disclosures involving undisclosed foreign assets worth Rs 4,164 crore were made in the one-time three months compliance window, which closed on September 30, 2015, under the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015.

The amount collected by way of tax and penalty in such cases was about Rs 2,476 crore, she said.

The data provided by the finance minister is up to May 31, 2022.

On questions on money deposited in Swiss banks by Indians, Sitharaman said: "There is no official estimate of amount of money deposited by Indian citizens and companies in Swiss banks".

However, she said certain recent media reports have stated that funds of Indians in Swiss Banks have risen in 2021 as compared to 2020.

These media reports have also mentioned that these deposits do not indicate the quantum of the alleged black money held by Indians in Switzerland.

The minister said the Swiss authorities had conveyed that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) annual banking statistics should not be used for analysing deposits held in Switzerland by residents of India.

Further, they have said that to analyse Indian residents' deposits held in Switzerland, another data source should be used, which is called "locational banking statistics", which the SNB collects in collaboration with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

As per the same media reports, the 'locational banking statistics' of the Bank for International Settlement (BIS), showed a decline of 8.3 per cent during 2021 in deposits by Indian individuals in Swiss banks, Sitharaman added.

She also apprised the House about the various measures taken by the government to bring to tax the undisclosed foreign assets and income in recent past.