Money stashed abroad will be brought back, reiterates Pranab

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee once again assured the Lok Sabha yesterday that the government was serious about the issue of bringing back black money – but did not outline any specific steps for doing so. He has made similar promises earlier as well. 

Replying to the debate on General Budget in the Lok Sabha on Friday, Pranab Mukherjee repeated his earlier insistence, saying, ''We shall have to first go with the legal framework and we have done it,'' even as he acknowledged that there has not been as much progress as envisioned. 

In this context, he repeated the references to the double taxation avoidance agreements (DTAA) and tax exchange information agreements with various countries thought to be tax havens.

Besides, he said government has intensified search and seizures leading to unearthing undisclosed income of Rs25,000 crore in the last 24 months that yielded Rs7,000 crore as additional tax. Through direct ways of international taxation, an additional amount of Rs34,601 crore was realised. 

Referring to the BJP task force report on black money, which, in its interim recommendations, estimated the quantum of such untaxed money at between $500 billion and to $1,400 billion, he said the range is unrealistically high. Now, he has set up a group to quantify black money and promised to share the report as soon as it becomes available. 

Another figure quoted by BJP senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi was from Global Financial Integrity for the past 60 years, from 1948-2008. ''By juxtaposing the exchange fluctuations, it comes to about $462 billion,'' he said.