‘No fresh amnesty for black money’

The government has no plans to introduce a new voluntary disclosure scheme for tax evaders, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

The government has no plans to introduce a new voluntary disclosure scheme for tax evaders, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. “We are not enamoured to have another type of disclosure scheme,” he said.

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VDS schemes in the past offered amnesty to people declaring black money and paying tax. But VDS schemes cannot be hugely successful unless the rate of tax under the amnesty is lower than the prevailing income tax rates, he said. This policy has been criticised as it amounted to penalising honest tax payers by asking them to pay tax at higher rates.