Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said as India evolves, the compliance level too should rise.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today vowed to make an example of money launderers and tax evaders, and said that penalising powers of the Enforcement Directorate should be used "expeditiously" in cases of non-compliance. Speaking at the Enforcement Day in New Delhi, he called on the agency to "strictly" enforce law to help raise legitimate revenue.
Mr Jaitley felt that non-compliance of tax laws has always hit the larger public and national interest.
"The revenue department and the ED have a very important role to play," he emphasised. "There is an expectation of compliance and in the event of non-compliance, there is the power of penalising that the ED has. This power has to be expeditiously used whenever violations are detected."
Stating that the government has given citizens the right to deal in foreign exchange with a sense of trust, he said serious offence of money laundering, including using hawala channels, flight of capital out of the country, round tripping of funds and creation of shell companies to avoid taxes have become a "very standardised practice".
The finance minister said these violations are not difficult to detect and scrutiny of filing with registrar of companies can also lead to the detection.
"The entire route of multi-layering through which the money laundering takes place... It is matter of a few minutes to detect how the violation takes place," he cautioned.
Mr Jaitley also stated that technology has provided tools to detect violations, and provisions under the PMLA and the FEMA have rules of evidence that can help take cases to the logical conclusion.
"Once we are able to make an example of some of these offenders, I think others then will realise the benefits of compliance of law," he added.
He hoped the ED will "strictly enforce the law in our endeavour to raise legitimate revenue which is in larger public interest which can only be achieved by ensuring voluntary compliances of people".
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also called for introspection saying that as India evolves, the compliance level too should rise. He said the total budgeted tax revenue collection of over Rs 19 lakh crore would have gone up if there were compliance in India and this money could have been used for funding education, healthcare and infrastructure.