Investigations are carried out on the 500 Indian names revealed in the Panama Papers leak
The 500 Indians featured in the Panama Papers leak for having offshore accounts are said to be in accordance with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rules, said a government official in an Economic Times report.
The official said that about 90% of the accounts revealed by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) investigation into offshore accounts by Panama-law firm Mossack Fonseca have used RBI's liberalised remittance scheme (LRS). However, the official added that the rest should be prepared to face the action.
The Panama Papers leaked 11.5 million documents of offshore accounts held by top global leaders and led to the resignation of Iceland's Prime Minister and put others under public scrutiny.
Raghuram Rajan, Governor of RBI last week cautioned against a "dangerous" trend of questions being raised about legitimacy of even the 'entrepreneurial wealth of self-made people'.
He said, "it's important to remember that there are legitimate reasons too, to have accounts overseas. We will have to see what is legitimate and not legitimate."
Rajan further added that it is important to note that there are legitimate reasons to have accounts outside the country. "Now increasingly there is a talk about whether entrepreneurial wealth is illegitimate, whether self-made people should have what they have and whether that's something a fair game,” he said.
The RBI is part of the multi-agency agency team that is investigating the names on the list.
Indians are legally allowed to open back accounts overseas with the limit of $2,50,000 (Rs 1.63 crore) permitted in transfer under LRS in a financial year.
The undisclosed accounts will face action under the black money law which was introduced last year.
In FY15 about $1.3 billion was transferred out of the country through LRS for the purchase of property, investment in equity and debt, donation and gifts, said the ET report. More than $8 billion in FY15 went out of the country through tuition fees and maintenance of close relatives.
The government had opened up a compliance window last year that provided a chance for those with black money to disclose assets. This however resulted only a few declarations (a total of 644 declarations) which yielded Rs 2,428.5 crore in tax.
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