Govt checking if any black money returned to India: Revenue Secy

In the wake of deposits held by Indians in Swiss banks dropping by 33 per cent, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia on Friday said the government was checking if any of the black money had been routed back to India. Noting the fall in money by Indians in Swiss banks as positive, Hasmukh said the data indicated that government’s steps to recover black money were in the right direction.

At the same time, he observed that the government and the Income Tax department were continuously working to detect black money and were making efforts to track down any such funds that have returned to India. “If money has returned or routed back into India, we (government and agencies) are taking steps to track it,” Adhia said.

Money held by Indians in Swiss banks has fallen by nearly one-third to a record low of 1.2 billion franc (about Rs 8,392 crore) amid a continuing global clampdown on the famed secrecy wall of Switzerland’s banking system.

The funds held by Indians with banks in Switzerland fell by CHF 596.42 million to CHF 1,217.6 million at the end of 2015, as per the latest data released by the country’s central banking authority SNB (Swiss National Bank) on Thursday. 

This is the lowest amount of funds held by Indians in the Swiss banks ever since the Alpine nation began making the data public in 1997 and marks the second straight year of decline.