Lok Sabha Question No. 4412 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-08-12
Subject: Recovery of Black Money from Abroad
Ministry: FINANCE
Asked by: MAULANA BADRUDDIN AJMAL

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF FINANCE DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE

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## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 4412

TO BE ANSWERED ON FRIDAY, THE 12 TH  AUGUST, 2016

SRAVANA 21, 1938 (SAKA)

## RECOVERY OF BLACK MONEY FROM ABROAD

4412. SHRI BADRUDDIN AJMAL:

Will the Minister of FINANCE be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Swiss Bank has revealed that Indians have more black money than rest of the world and if so, the details thereof;
- (b) whether the Government proposes to bring back all the black money to the country and if so, the details of the efforts have been done/being done by the Government in this regard;
- (c) whether the Government has made any international efforts to collect information on the actual numbers of account holders from India; and
- (d) if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE (SHRI SANTOSH KUMAR GANGWAR)

- (a):  No  authentic  estimate  of  amount  of  money  belonging  to  people  of  Indian  origin, numbers of account holders from India in Swiss Bank is available.

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(b): The Government has taken several effective measures, both by way of policy-level initiatives  as  well  as  through  more  effective  enforcement  action  on  the  ground,  to address with the issue of black money, particularly black money stashed away abroad. These  include - (i) Constitution of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Black Money under Chairmanship and Vice-Chairmanship of two former Judges of Hon'ble Supreme Court,  (ii)  Introduction  of  the  Benami  Transactions  (Prohibition)  Amendment  Bill,  2015 (passed by the Parliament on 02.08.2016) to amend  the benami  Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988 with a view to, inter alia, enable confiscation of Benami property, (iii)  While  focusing  upon  non-intrusive  measures,  due  emphasis  on  enforcement measures in high impact cases with a view to prosecute the offenders at the earliest for credible deterrence  against tax evasion/black money;  and  (iv) Initiation of the information technology  based  'Project Insight'  by  the  Income-tax  Department  for strengthening the non-intrusive information driven approach for improving tax compliance and effective utilization of available information.

(c) & (d): India has been a leading force in the efforts to forge a multi-lateral regime for proactive sharing of financial information known as Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI)  based  on  Common  Reporting  Standard  (CRS)  which  will  greatly  assist  in receiving  information  about  the  Indian  residents  having  bank  accounts  abroad.  For implementation  of  AEOI,  India  signed  Multilateral  Competent  Authority  Agreement (MCAA) on 03 rd June,  2015.  India  and  U.S.A.  has  also  signed  the  Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) under the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) on 9 th July, 2015 for sharing information about offshore accounts of taxpayers of both countries. The AEOI and IGA under FATCA will enable India to get information about financial accounts held by Indian resident persons in other countries.

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