Income Declaration Scheme

New Delhi: In the biggest ever blackmoney disclosure, at least Rs 65,250 crore of undisclosed assets were declared in the one-time compliance window, yielding Rs 29,362 crore in taxes to the government. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states have accounted for close to one third of the total amount (Rs 20,000 crores) netted by this window.

While the blackmoney declarations will go up once all the online and manual filings of undisclosed assets filed at the end of the four-month window on September 30 are compiled, the government will get nearly Rs 14,700 crore or half of the due taxes, this fiscal.

Announcing the declarations made under the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS), Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said 64,275 declarants disclosed an amount of Rs 65,250 crore.

"Some disclosures have not been tabulated... This figure could be revised upward once the final tabulation is done," he told a news conference here.

Government had offered a one-time chance to holders of income and assets that had illegally escaped taxes, to come clean by paying a tax and penalty of 45 percent ..

On the declarations compiled so far, the government will get Rs 29,362.5 crore in tax and penalty. The declarants can pay this amount in two instalments up to September 30, 2017. Half or Rs 14,681.25 crore will accrue this fiscal.

Last year, under a similar scheme for foreign black money holders, 644 declarations of undisclosed foreign income and assets were received, and just Rs 2,428 crore was collected in taxes.

"We will maintain secrecy of these declarations," Jaitley Said. adding the tax would accrue to the Consolidated Fund of India and would be used for welfare of public.

The average declaration per declarant comes to Rs 1 crore.

A total tax of Rs 9,760 crore was collected under the Voluntary Income Disclosure Scheme (VIDS) amnesty scheme brought by the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram in 1997.

"In 1997, the tax collected was Rs 9,760 crore," Jaitley said, adding that VDIS and IDS cannot be compared as the two schemes are different...

While IDS is not an amnesty scheme, VDIS provided blanket amnesty, he said. Taxation under IDS is charged at the rate of 45 per cent while the effective rate of tax in the 1997 scheme was in single digit.
Jaitley also listed out the steps taken by the government to unearth unaccounted money in over two years, including Rs 56,378 crore during search operation and Rs 16,000 crore from non-filers of tax returns.

With about Rs 65,250 crore of blackmoney being declared under the Income Disclosure Scheme, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today appreciated those choosing to be tax compliant and termed it is a great contribution towards transparency and growth of the economy. "I compliment all those who chose to be tax compliant in IDS-2016. This is a great contribution towards transparency & growth of the economy," Modi tweeted, a day after the scheme, which had a compliance window of 4-months, came to a close.

The Prime Minister complimented Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his team at the Finance Ministry for the "hard work" resulting in the successful outcome of IDS-2016. He said Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, CBDT Chairperson Rani Nair and their teams had put in tremendous effort on all aspects relating to IDS-2016. "Congrats to them", he added. Earlier, Jaitley said 64,275 declarations were made in the four-month window and this figure could go up once all the declarations filed online and manually are compiled.

The money declared totals Rs 65,250 crore, of which 45 per cent would accrue to the government as tax and penalty.

The government had provided illegal income and asset holders a one-time opportunity to come clean by declaring their blackmoney under the four-month window and pay 45 per cent tax and penalty
CBDT rich haul: In order to make the income disclosure scheme a success, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had issued a number of FAQs to address various queries.

With industry raising the issue of difficulties with respect to payment of taxes in a short span, the government permitted paying tax in three instalments. While 25 per cent of the tax is to be paid by November 2016 and March 2017 each, the remaining 50 per cent is to be paid by September 2017.

Absolute confidentiality of the declarations made was promised under the scheme to reassure the declarants.

"This was a major step towards reigning in the parallel economy of the country and merging it with the mainstream. The CBDT endeavours to continuously use non-intrusive methods towards widening and deepening of the tax base," a finance ministry said in a statement.

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed to the public to avail the four-month window and come clean. Also more than 5,500 public meetings in various cities were conducted by the department. Innovative publicity methods like Talkathons, Walkathons and Nukkad Nataks were used to spread awareness about the scheme.

"The Department's strategic use of taxpayer information and data mining techniques further spurred the declarations," the statement added.

To make compliance under IDS more easy, the government had a few months back extended the deadline for payment of tax and penalty under the window. It had also allowed declarants to pay the amount in three instalments by September 30 next year.

The first instalment of 25 per cent under the IDS 2016 will have to be paid by November 2016, followed by another 25 per cent by March 31, 2017. The remaining amount will have to be paid to the exchequer by September 30 next year. Earlier the tax, surcharge and penalty under the black money disclosure window were required to be paid by November 30. The scheme was announced by the government with an aim of bringing out black money from the domestic economy. The government had come out with a similar scheme for Indians holding undisclosed income abroad. IDS was opened on June 1.