Mumbai and Delhi came in next with disclosures worth over Rs 8,000 crore each
Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi made up for almost half of the more than Rs 65,000 crore worth of black money declarations made across the country during the four-month window that closed on Friday, according to at least two tax officers.
The officers said while Hyderabad topped the list with Rs 13,000 crore, Mumbai and Delhi received disclosures worth over Rs 8,000 crore each.
Andhra Pradesh and Telangana saw declarations worth close to Rs 19,000 crore, approximately 30 per cent of the disclosures under the scheme, the officers said.
Northeast saw disclosures worth Rs 1,000 crore, while Odisha and Kerala saw the least response with declarations under Rs 500 crore, they added.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes has not released any state-wise break-up of the declarations to maintain confidentiality. It clarified on Saturday in a tweet that ‘… no official list of region-wise declarations has been issued. The department is committed to maintain strict confidentiality’.
A list of the break-up was doing the rounds on social media. But the CBDT said: ‘The CBDT requests general public not to pay any heed to such fraudulent messages circulating on the social media’.
A total of 64,275 declarations were made under the scheme, an average of Rs 1 crore per disclosure. This is expected to translate into tax collection of about Rs 30,000 crore from the scheme, of which the government exchequer should get around Rs 15,000 crore by the end of 2016-17, providing extra revenue buffer. The income tax officers are learnt to have carried out at least 400 surveys in a month in Mumbai alone to ensure higher declarations.
According to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, a quantum jump in the searches and survey has resulted in seizure of Rs 1,986 crore as well as undisclosed income of Rs 56,378 crore in the last two and a half years.
The Income Declaration Scheme, launched on June 1, gave a one-time opportunity to declare black money and escape prosecution by paying 45 per cent tax on unaccounted money and assets. The tax amount included tax rate of 30 per cent, besides Krishi Kalyan Cess and penalty of 7.5 per cent each.
The CBDT used information collected through non-intrusive measures like quoting of Permanent Account Number or annual information returns to get more people to make declaration. Having information of nine million high-value transactions without PAN, the income tax department issued 0.7 million letters to such individuals, asking them to come clean under the compliance window.
The tax department scrutinised the returns for high-value transactions, which have divulged cash deposits of over Rs 10 lakh in a savings bank account, sale/purchase of immovable property valued at Rs 30 lakh or more, and many of these transactions do not have PAN.
