MAY2012

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UPA’s white paper on black money a farce

Author:  MR Venkatesh

Despite the massive levels of black money being generated, the Government has not been able to net the big fish in any meaningful manner. Therefore, the people have come to accept that scams have become a way of life in India

The White Paper on Black Money that has been released by the UPA Government is a pathetic exercise in understanding, let alone tackling, the menace of black money. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of global finance, national taxation and Indian economy would dismiss this document as the first draft of a junior under-secretary rather than a serious document of the Government of India on a subject that has been agitating the collective conscience of the nation for the past few years.

The document innocently assumes that black money is “income on which the taxes imposed by the Government or public authorities have not been paid.” It goes on to add that this definition of black money is in “consonance” with the definition used by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, which in turn defined black money as “the aggregate of incomes which are taxable but not reported to the tax authorities”, little realising all this is of 1985 vintage. In short, should the 2G Spectrum scamsters pay 30 per cent taxes to the Government from their share of loot, they can claim to have no black money.