There is no official estimate on the amount of black money stashed in foreign accounts for last five years, the Union government told the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary made the statement in a written reply to a question by Samajwadi Party MPs Sukhram Singh Yadav and Vishambhar Prasad Nishad.
Chaudhary said that the government has taken several steps against black money stashed abroad, and added that these have led to positive results.
The Centre said that 648 disclosures about undisclosed foreign assets worth Rs 4,164 crore were made during a one-time three month compliance window that closed on September 30, 2015. “The amount collected by way of tax and penalty in such cases was about Rs 2,476 crore,” Chaudhary said.
Undisclosed income amounting to over Rs 8,466 crore from unreported foreign accounts of HSBC Bank has been brought to tax, the government told the Rajya Sabha. Penalties of over Rs 1,294 crore have been levied on this income, it added.
“Sustained investigations conducted in the cases revealed by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists have led to detection of more than Rs 11,010 crore of credits in the undisclosed foreign accounts so far,” the minister told Parliament.
In cases related to the Panama and Paradise Papers, authorities have detected undisclosed credits of Rs 20,353 crore with respect to 930 India-linked entities. The government has collected taxes of Rs 153.88 crore in these cases, Chaudhary said.
Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance Bhagwat Karad, in a reply to a separate question in the Rajya Sabha, said that as on December 11, there were 33 absconders or proclaimed offenders in Central Bureau of Investigation cases pertaining to bank frauds who have fled abroad.
“Action is taken as per law in all such cases, and the requests for their extradition are sent to the respective countries and Interpol Red Corner notices are issued against such absconders/proclaimed offenders,” Karad told the Rajya Sabha.
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