Bounty for tax informants

The Telegraph, June 02,2018
By Jayant Roy Chowdhury

The Narendra Modi government has stepped up its war against black money by increasing the reward for informants who provide specific and credible information against tax dodgers.
The inducement has been raised from Rs 15 lakh to as high as Rs 5 crore for disclosures that lead to the unearthing of black money and assets abroad.
Although the official circulars were issued on April 23, the reward schemes were unveiled on Friday - a day after the CBI had searched Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar, who had successfully quarantined newly elected legislators in Karnataka to stop the BJP from poaching any of them ahead of a floor test. The charge against Shivakumar is that he had laundered black money during the demonetisation exercise.

The "Benami Scheme" promises to give informants who give detailed information on illegally held property 1 per cent of the fair market value of the property as an initial reward and 5 per cent of the market value as the final reward once the property has been possessed and sold off.
"Benami" refers to property held by a real or fictitious person on behalf of another person who has actually paid for it. The income-tax department has promised to keep the identity of any informant a secret.
"This is a significant step... to try and incentivise informants to snitch on undeclared cash troves or illegally held property. It may well tighten the noose around politicians, including Opposition party leaders who are involved in this, along with businessmen and others," said a revenue department official.
In April, the Benami Property Transaction Act was used to attach land registered in the name of a factory linked to Lalu Prasad's son Tej Pratap Yadav. Before that, a tax probe was launched against Mayawati's brother Anand Kumar, who is alleged to have amassed Rs 2,000 crore worth of property.
Refrence;

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