The global irregularities of the rich reported by the Panama Papers have helped the Indian tax agencies to detect undeclared assets of about Rs 20,000 crore, according to a report by The Indian Express. The data point was revealed by the Central Board of Direct Taxes(CBDT) while replying to an RTI query filed by the newspaper.
According to the RTI response, the Indian tax agencies have identified assets valued in total at Rs 20,078 crore as of June 2021. These assets are located both in India and abroad. The CBDT has also started taking action against the offenders. It has filed 46 prosecutions in many courts under the provisions of the Black Money Act and Income Tax Act.
More importantly, an amount of Rs 142 crore has been recovered in the form of applicable taxes from those who are facing government prosection. Searches and surveys have also happened in 83 cases, the RTI response by the CBDT added.
The value of total assets identified stood at Rs 1,088 crore in April 2018 and Rs 1,564 crore in June 2019, according to previous RTI’s filed by The Indian Express.
According to data released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists(ICIJ), an amount greater than $1.36 billion has been recovered till now by tax agencies globally in the Panama Papers case. The European countries led the way in tax recollections with UK, Germany, Spain, France and Austria recovering the highest tax amounts from the offenders.
The Panama Papers investigation, led by the ICIJ, led to leaks of more than 11.5 million financial and legal records in April 2016.
