Report on black money may be tabled in the House today

NEW DELHI: The government is likely to table the report on black money, prepared by the Standing Committee on Finance of the previous Lok Sabha, in Parliament on Monday. The report, ‘status of unaccounted income/wealth both inside and outside the country — a critical analysis (a preliminary report), was presented to former Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan on March 28. A copy of the report was also put up on the Lok Sabha website on the directions of the committee. The report shall be presented by the secretary generals in both the Houses.

The report doesn’t give a conclusive figure of black money stashed abroad or within the country. Also, Veerappa Moily, chairman of the standing committee that presented the report, has blamed the NDA regime for being non-serious on the issue. “In the past five years, the NDA government gave only slogans and no solid action was taken against black money,” Moily told ET. “We have mentioned in the report that direct tax reforms are the need of the hour and, instead of making piecemeal amendment to the I-T Act, we require a simplified code on direct taxes. Reforms in direct taxes are still pending. It has not gone in tandem with reforms in indirect taxes such as the GST.”

In 2011, the then UPA government had asked three institutes — Delhibased National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the National Institute of Financial Management (NIFM) in Faridabad — to make an estimate on black money. The standing committee had also gone through their reports and ‘found a wide variation’ in their estimate. “The variations in estimate is more than 100% in some cases,” said Moily. As per the NIPFP study, unaccounted financial flows out of the country have been in the range of 0.2% to 7.4% of GDP during 1997 to 2009.

NCAER estimated that the wealth accumulated outside India was in the range of $384 billion to $490 billion during 1980 to 2010. NIFM said it was Rs 9,41,837 crore during 1990 to 2008. “The unaccounted income and wealth inside and outside the country do not appear amenable to credible estimation in the context of India,” says the standing committee report. Moily clarified that it was only a preliminary report.