Lok Sabha passes Bill to penalise stashing black money abroad

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha passed a Bill to impose high monetary penalty and criminal prosecution for stashing black money abroad. Finance minister Arun Jaitley allayed fears that innocent people could be harassed by the new law.

Piloting the Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Bill, 2015, he said there would be a compliance window for persons having undisclosed income abroad to come clean by paying 30 per cent tax and 30 per cent penalty. After that, anyone found having undeclared wealth abroad would need to pay 30 per cent tax, 90 per cent penalty and face prosecution.