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Income Tax to serve demand notices on 339 Swiss account holders

The Income Tax sleuths are all set to process demand notices to 339 account holders in Swiss banks under the HSBC list.

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The Income Tax sleuths are all set to process demand notices to 339 account holders in Swiss banks under the HSBC list.

"We are in the process of finalising assessment which will be over early this March. So far, the department has finalised assessment of almost 85-90 assessees involving more than 300 assessments," said a senior I-T official close to the development.

What will the demand notices comprise?

"By the end of March 31, demand notice will be sent to all the respective account holders of HSBC Geneva. The demand notice will include corporate tax (33%), penalties (could be anywhere between 100% and 300%) and interest payments depending on the nature of the case. This will work out to around 150% of money stashed abroad," said sources.

Is I-T dept contacting other countries as well?

According to sources, the I-T department is sending another round of consent letters to the governments in the UK, the US and Germany seeking information of some major assesees.

"In some cases, we have found huge amount of money being diverted to the US and the UK bank accounts from Geneva, that information need to be sought."
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) clearly instructed the department that irrespective of this, notices should be served in all the actionable cases even if the respective countries would not respond in the given timeline, said sources.

What is the stash of black money worth today?

The government had said in December that of the list of 628 Indians who could be holding black money overseas as per the HSBC list, 201 are either non-traceable or non-residents, while 289 have no balance left in their accounts. There are 427 actionable cases that collectively hold a sum of Rs 4,479 crore in bank accounts overseas, according to the official release, calculated at the dollar-rupee exchange of Rs 45 per dollar.

Out of these, an amount of Rs 2,926 crore has been brought to tax towards the undisclosed balances in the accounts relating to these persons.

Have penalty proceedings been initiated so far?

Penalty proceedings under Section 271 (1)(c) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (IT Act) have been initiated in 46 cases. Such penalties have been levied in three cases so far. With regard to the other assessees, proceedings are pending.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley had earlier said that proceedings in these cases would be completed by March 31. The SIT headed by retired Supreme Court judge M B Shah along with Justice (retd) Arijit Pasayat had also stated in their last report submitted to the apex court in December that these cases would be brought to their logical and legal conclusion by the said deadline.

  • I-T to start raising demand notices by March first week
  • Out of 628 HSBC account holders, balances are shown against 339 persons
  • 201 are either non–residents or non–traceable
  • Department has finalised assessment of almost 85-90 assessees out of 300 assessments
  • Total amount involved is about Rs 4,479 crore
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