Black money: Income Tax Department begins final assessment of declarations

The Income Tax department has begun the process of final assessment of those black money declarations that were made to it as part of the one-time compliance window that closed in September.

Sources said while a final reconciliation of the total amount and number of declarations had been done few days after the window closed on September 30, the department has now begun analysing and assessing the validity of these declarations.

They said a special office created to receive these undisclosed funds is expected to issue final statements to the declarants by November so that they can pay their due taxes by December 31 this year.

"Instructions have been issued to the department to check and go through the validity of each and every of the 638 declarations before taking final action. In case the department finds it was in possession of advance information against a declarant of the compliance window, he or she will be intimated about the same.

"In case there is no prior information with the taxmen about the declaration then the entity will have to pay taxes by December as stipulated under the rules," they said.

According to rules, if the tax department possessed any information against a person who has availed the 90-day one-time window, they will not benefit from it and will have to face stringent action under the law.

Government had said Rs 4,147 crore has been disclosed to it under the black money compliance window by 638 entities. The total tax receipt from the black money declared during the window is estimated at Rs 2,488 crore.

The compliance window, under the new anti-black money law brought out by the government, gave an opportunity to foreign assets holders to declare assets, pay a total of 60 per cent tax and penalty and escape stringent provisions of the new black money law.

The scheme was operational from July this year till September.  (DNA INDIA)