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Black money window to cushion spectrum auction shortfall: FM
NEW DELHI: Tax collected under the country’s biggest black money disclosure will help cushion revenue shortfall from the sale of telecom spectrum and help manage
NEW DELHI: Tax collected under the country’s biggest black money disclosure will help cushion revenue shortfall from the sale of telecom spectrum and help manage the fiscal situation, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Monday.
As much as ₹65,250 crore of undisclosed assets were brought to light during the 4-month onetime compliance window ending September 30, yielding the government ₹29,362 crore in taxes, half of it in the current fiscal.
In contrast, India’s biggest auction of telecom spectrum ended last week with a whimper attracting just ₹65,789 crore in bids as against a potential of ₹5.6 lakh crore. The yield to the government will be ₹37,000 crore this fiscal.
Jaitley said one category of spectrum, 700 MHz band, didn’t find any buyers, but the total amount of radiowaves sold from other frequencies was highest ever.
“I am sure eventually managing the fiscal is not going to be difficult. In any case, this year and next year the tax paid out of the IDS (Income Disclosure Scheme) itself gives me a reasonable amount of cushioning,” he told CNBC TV18.
Jaitley said the BJP-led government has in the last two-and-a-half years taken steps to curb black money and the first decision it took after assuming office was to constitute the Special Investigating Team (SIT).
“Every decision we have taken is to try and make India through persuasion, through law, through compliance opportunities and even through fear...a tax compliant nation. After all, payment of taxes is necessary if we are to eliminate poverty. Payment of taxes is necessary if rural India is to develop,” he said.
The finance minister said every person who evades taxes is not discharging his national obligation. “As a result of which we are trying to make India, through every measure, a more tax compliant country and I am sure that GST eventually, in indirect taxes and its cascading effect on the behaviour of direct tax assesses, is also going to persuade people to become more and more tax compliant,” he said.
