NEW DELHI : Black money holders abroad will get a “few months” of compliance window to disclose their assets after a new stringent black money Bill is passed by Parliament in the session beginning tomorrow, Revenue Secretary has said.
In an interview, Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das said the duration of the window will be notified once the new law gets through.
Asked how long the compliance window would be, he said: “It has to be a matter of a few months. It’s a matter on which the government is yet to take a decision.”
The Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Bill, 2015, which has been proposed to come into effect from April 1, 2016, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 21.
The new law on black money, Das said, will also allow the tax department to reopen books of 16 years ago to unearth evasion, if any.
The compliance window in all likelihood will provide an opportunity to people having undisclosed income abroad to come clean.
“…A very reasonable compliance window will come for those who indulged in misadventure in the past,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had earlier said.
The Bill said that concealment of income in relation to a foreign asset will attract penalty equal to three times the amount of tax (90 per cent of the undisclosed income or the value of the undisclosed asset). This would be over and above tax at a flat rate of 30 per cent.
It also provides for a rigorous imprisonment of up to 10 years for concealment of overseas income.
The Bill provides a separate taxation of undisclosed income abroad which will be no longer be taxed under the Income Tax Act. (AGENCIES)
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