Arun Jaitley moves blackmoney bill in Lok Sabha, seeks opposition support

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today moved in Lok Sabha a bill which provides for penalty and tax up to 120 per cent along with criminal prosecution for those who have parked black money abroad.

Piloting the Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Bill, 2015 for passage, Jaitley asked the Opposition not to develop "cold feet" in supporting the legislation.

He rejected the opposition demand of referring it to the Standing Committee saying delay in enacting the legislation would provide opportunity to offenders to transfer unaccounted overseas wealth to unknown destinations.

For those wanting to come clean, Jaitley said there would be a compliance window in two parts -- to declare assets and to pay 30 per cent tax and 30 per cent penalty.

Citing an example, he said, there could be a two-month window to declare overseas assets and within six months one would have to pay tax and penalty.

Once the compliance window closes, anyone found having undeclared overseas wealth would be required to pay 30 per cent tax, 90 per cent penalty and face criminal prosecution, said Jaitley.

The Bill, which was introduced amid persistant demand for dealing effectively with black money stashed abroad, provides for rigorous imprisonment of up to 10 years for offenders.

Rejecting the opposition demand of sending the bill to Parliamentary Standing Committee for scrutiny, he said, "when we are taking steps, don't develop cold feet. For last 11 months, you have been asking what steps are you taking. When I took steps, do walk the talk and support the bill and drop the demand of sending it to Standing Committee."