The `missing’ and later dramatic arrest at a news channel studio of low profile Ahmedabad businessman Mahesh Shah’s episode giving us scope to believe that demonetization offers a better deal to launder black money, than the Income Tax (IT) department’s Income Declaration Scheme (IDS).
Under IDS he had declared a whopping Rs 13,860 crore of undisclosed income and later by the time he was needed to pay first instalment of tax, he was seen missing. As by that time, demonetization was in force, many are expecting that he found that would be more useful to make their `black money’ into `white’.
Shah shot into the radars of the income-tax department when he volunteered a disclosure of income of over ₹13,860 crores. He is an extremely low profile personality who preferred a life of simplicity, travelling most of the time in auto-rickshaws.
He was reported to have visited the IT office on September 30, 2016, the final day of the IDS scheme. He also submitted the statutory form No. 2 under IDS on October 14, which the IT department approved.
This meant Shah would have to pay up 45%, or approximately ₹6,237 crores of the amount declared as tax. However, Shah defaulted on the first instalment payment of ₹1,560 crores, past the due date of November 30. Thereafter, the tax sleuths got into the act.
Many suspects demonetisation was the reason for his disappearance. It may be interesting that now he is claiming “this was not my money. It belongs to big names and I will disclose them to the income-tax authorities.” He is now threatening to disclose the names of politicians and businessmen for whom he was acting as a front.
The former Finance Minister P Chidambaram in a tweet said, “There is a Rs 13,860 crore hole in the Rs 65,000 crore IDS! How many more holes’”
There is a Rs 13,860 crore hole in the Rs 65,000 crore IDS! How many more holes?
— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) December 4, 2016
