Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha (L) with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in post-budget press conference. (Press Trust of India)
Indians holding black money abroad will be given a last chance to disclose their overseas bank accounts or wealth to the government and avoid a jail term.
Revealing this, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha today said that failure to unveil assets abroad will invite a rigorous jail term of up to seven years, while concealment of income and tax evasion would result in 10-year imprisonment.
These provisions will be part of a Bill that the government plans to bring in the current session of Parliament to check the black money menace.
Dismissing the suggestion that government was proposing an amnesty scheme for black money holders, the Minister in an interview said to PTI: "There is no amnesty scheme. We have said very clearly, we expect everybody, who has any undisclosed wealth, accounts, so on ...outside the country should disclose that.
"We have created a window to do that. There is no amnesty at all. You have to disclose, what you have. You have a certain amount of time to disclose that...If they don't disclose, they will be liable to punishment of various imprisonment up to 7 years."
Elaborating on the proposed legislation, Mr Sinha said the concealment of income and tax evasion could result in imprisonment of up to 10 years.
Moreover, as per the provisions, the account holder will have to mandatorily specify the date of opening of foreign account in the return of income.