The present government seems to be very active in pursuing black money.
The only other way is to wait for somebody to steal the data as happened in the case of LGT - the Lichtenstein based trust. They prepared a case in US and presented it to the Swiss. This is what the US did in the case of its citizens who had stashed money in UBS. It will require a great deal of meticulous work here to get the right persons. If you ask a Swiss bank, they might tell you the 'names' they have but these are not the real people. There are devious means by which money is transferred through several layers of shell companies. No amount of agreements to avoid double taxation or infor mation sharing will yield information on real account holders. If it is untaxed, unreported income then it needs to be tracked and brought to book. Let me clarify that all Indians with foreign accounts are not criminals. The bulk of the money is right here in the country! It is very difficult to get money out of foreign tax havens unless someone has been really stupid. How can the foreign-based black money be retrieved? First of all, I think going after just the foreign component of black money is a diversion. This is not the amount of money stashed abroad - it is the opportunity cost of that. If all the money that has been illegally taken out were to be invested back in India, the gain would be equivalent to $2 trillion (about Rs 120 lakh crore). Some is consumed there (yachts, houses, vacations) and some is routed back to India through various means including hawala, or through the Mauritius route.
That means, of the total black economy, about 10% is in foreign banks. Of these savings, about 20% is taken out of the country. About half of this is consumption while the remaining half is savings. What is the measure of this 'black economy' in India and how much of it is stashed away in foreign tax havens? My estimate is that more than 50% of India's economy is black. So he gets extra unreported income at every stage of production and distribution. A sugar mill owner will under weigh the sugar cane, the juice and the crystalline sugar, and also bribe excise officials to report less production. At the societal level, this is a system, it's institutionalized. But when it is not included in his income returns it becomes `black'.
If a private tutor or a doctor earns some income, that's not illegal. Often black money is taken to mean money generated through illegal activities like bribery.
The part of this economy which is available as 'money' is called black money. All unreported incomes whether by legal or illegal means, and their subsequent use in consumption or investment forms the 'black economy'. How do you define 'black money'? Actually, 'black money' is a tiny component of the huge 'black economy'. To understand what black money is and how it can be recovered, Subodh Varma spoke to India's pre-eminent expert on the black economy, Prof Arun Kumar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Astronomical figures of treasure hoards hidden abroad have been bandied around, especially in the recent elections. At the Supreme Court's order, Modi sarkar has set up a Special Investigation Team to look into cases of illegal outflow of money to foreign havens. The scent of 'black money' is in the air again.