Whitening black money
FINANCE Minister AMA Muhith has backtracked on his post-budget press conference announcement to the effect that thenceforth the provision for legalizing black money stood cancelled. Just three weeks on, during the passage of the finance bill, the finance minister treated us with a retraction. He has declared that undisclosed or unearned incomes would be allowed to be legalized and that two options will be available for this purpose: Investments in real estate by paying tax, and legalization of unearned or undeclared incomes by paying a 10 percent penalty in addition to normal tax. The scope has been withdrawn only in case of investment in treasury bonds.
We have three comments to make about the continuation of the virtual amnesty provisions: First, this has met with negligible response is from the holders of such obviously questionable money; that brings us to the second issue of morality, that of enjoying the waiver without any questions being asked about the origin of such tainted money; third, and the most important question relates to rewarding the black money holders as against the honest businessmen who create genuine wealth and pay tax on it
With the magnitude of black money in existence and circulation -- much of it having been stashed away overseas -- we have a real issue here of meeting the challenge headlong rather than doing kid glove boxing , that too with a shadow.
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