Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the issue with him this morning and on his advise the group has been set up, which includes officials from CBDT, RBI and FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit).
"The multi-agency group will comprise various government agencies - the CBDT, FIU, FT&TR (Foreign Tax and Tax Research) and RBI. They will continuously monitor these (accounts) and whichever accounts are found to be unlawful, strict action as per existing laws will be taken," he told reporters.
The newspaper claimed that the list included foundations and trusts and passport details of 234 Indians.
Jaitley said after today's revelations, more names may come out in the next few days.
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"I welcome this investigation. I think it is a healthy step that these kind of exposes are being made. I have been repeatedly saying that the world is now going to increasingly become more transparent, countries are cooperating with each other and slowly all this information is going to come out as a result of various global initiatives which have been launched," he said.
Jaitley said the report published by The Indian Express
gave details of accounts and assets held by some Indian entities in Panama.
This is the fourth collective bunch of such information and investigation that have been made, he said.
He added: "The first related to Liechtenstein accounts against all persons involved in that prosecutions have already been launched. Assessment orders have been passed. Then details came in 2011 with regard to HSBC account holders. 569 out of those account holders have been traced. 390 were illegal and already 154 set of prosecutions have been filed."
"The prosecutions are taking their normal course and assessment proceedings and their consequential actions are on," he said.
In 2013 the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists had published a list of 700 persons which was analysed, he said, adding, "434 Indian entities have been traced. 184 out of them admitted their relationship with the accounts and the process of passing assessment and prosecuting them is now on. Already 52 prosecutions have been filed by Income Tax authorities".
Jaitley said that in view of the commitment of the Central Government to bring out undisclosed money both from abroad and from within the country, "the information brought out by any investigative journalism is welcome".
flow of information in each one of these cases. The government will take all necessary actions as required to get maximum information from all sources including from foreign governments to help in the investigation process".
India, he added, is also concerned that there are nations in the world which are being used as tax havens because of which all other countries of the world suffer loss of tax.
The recent initiative of Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), Jaitley said, will help India and other countries in checking this practice of tax-avoidance through such tax havens. "India is also fully committed to the BEPS initiative."
Out of 628, 214 were found not actionable on account of no balance or being non-residents or being non-traceable.
Of the remaining cases, assessments have been completed in 390 cases in which undisclosed income of Rs 5,018 crore and tax demand of Rs 4,584 crore has been raised, the statement said. Also, a concealment penalty of Rs 1,213 crores has been levied in 157 cases.