Over 5,500 public meetings, social media campaign on Talkathons and Nukkad Nataks along with threat of prosecution prompted over 64,000 blackmoney holders to declare unaccounted wealth under four-month disclosure window that would make the exchequer richer by over Rs 29,000 crore. The Income Tax department which worked overtime to make the income disclosure scheme (IDS), 2016, a success, had organised more than 5,500 public meetings in various cities in the last four months to spread awareness. It has also extensively used innovative publicity on social media by organising Talkathons. Also, Walkathons and Nukkad Nataks were used as tools to encourage black money holders to declare their undisclosed assets and come clean by paying 45 per cent tax and penalty. The department also made strategic use of taxpayer information and data mining techniques to spur declarations, which resulted in black money holders disclosing an amount of Rs 65,250 crore. Initially Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia held meetings with senior CBDT officials every weekend through video conferencing to monitor the progress. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on different ocassions had appealed to the people to sleep peacefully by disclosing unaccounted assets. Elated by the declarations made under the scheme, Modi tweeted: “I compliment all those who chose to be tax compliant in IDS- 2016. This is a great contribution towards transparency & growth of the economy.” He also complimented Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his team at the Finance Ministry for the “hard work” resulting in the successful outcome of IDS-2016. Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das tweetd: “Elimination of black money will eliminate the shadow of ghost economy on our real economy. Very positive for India’s growth outlook”. Jaitley said with so many people declaring unaccounted money, it shows that significant number of people want to become tax compliant.
[Source:-Moneycontrol]
