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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said the income-tax department has no intention to be “vindictive” against taxpayers or assessees who have opted for the Income Declaration 2016 scheme, which closed on Friday.
This should come as some comfort to the 64,285 declarants, many of whom fear “after-effects” for opting for the black money compliance window.
While refusing to go into specific information on the nature of declarants or the quantum of declaration, Jaitley said that the scheme had drawn 64,285 declarants who in aggregate declared ₹65,250 crore of hitherto-undeclared income.
This aggregate declared amount will be revised upward as both online and offline submissions get compiled, Jaitley said at a press conference to announce the outcome of IDS 2016.
Asked if he was satisfied with the response to the scheme, Jaitley said that “it’s a good figure (value of declaration made). These are significant amounts”.
‘No targets’ Jaitley also highlighted that the government had not set any targets for the scheme.
“We had no targets. This response is a positive development as people on the higher tax bracket want to be compliant on the income-tax front,” Jaitley said.
With average declaration coming at about ₹1 crore, it is clear that small traders were not hiding such incomes. “It’s mostly people with significant resources who have opted for declaration under this scheme,” he said.
Jaitley declined to be drawn into questions around who made the largest declaration or which State accounted for the largest share of declarations.
He highlighted that the scheme provided that the identity of the declarants will not be revealed.
Later, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairperson Rani Singh Nair told reporters that she was quite satisfied with the response to the income declaration scheme.
She, however, declined to comment on whether declarants included those who were hitherto non-taxpayers.
The income declaration scheme was open from June 1 this year and closed on September 30. Declarants under the scheme will now be required to fork out roughly 45 per cent as tax (including penalty) for the undisclosed income declared.
Successful outcome: Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday praised Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his revenue department team for their hard work that resulted in the “successful outcome” of Income Declaration Scheme-2016.
He also complimented all those who chose to be tax-compliant in IDS-2016.
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