Black money on taxmen's agenda

CBDT panel to submit report in 4 weeks.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has set up an expert committee to recommend special schemes to unearth black money and hidden assets. This is line with the government's announcement in the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP).

The committee, which is headed by the director general of investigations, will submit its report to the board in the next four weeks, senior government officials told Business Standard. Other members of the committee include chief commissioners and field officers.

Officials said the committee's mandate would include recommending both enforcement measures and schemes for voluntary disclosure.

"There are several novel ideas of enforcement which are being discussed. One idea is to have an expiry date on currency notes so that hoarding of cash becomes difficult," an official said.

The government had last introduced a voluntary disclosure scheme in 1997.

The progress made by the revenue department on several fronts, including introduction of special schemes to unearth black money and hidden assets, was taken up at the recent review of the NCMP done by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The department pointed out in its report that several measures had been taken, including introduction of provisions in the Income Tax Act aimed at bringing unreported income within the tax net and checking the flow of black money.

The department said taxation of gifts of money, barring that received at the time of marriage, received from an unrelated person in excess of Rs 25,000 had been brought under the tax net.

Similarly the government had introduced tax deduction at source on compensation paid on compulsory acquisition of immovable properties (other than agricultural land).

The CBDT is hopeful of collecting more than Rs 7,000 crore as income tax arrears, the target indicated by Finance Minister P Chidambaram for the current financial year. The board has already collected Rs 3,400 crore during the first six months of the current fiscal year, compared to Rs 2,700 crore in the same period a year earlier.