No official estimation on Black money

Finance minister, Arun Jaitley has stated on Tuesday that there is no official estimation of the black money of India that was stashed in abroad.

He stated to Rajya Sabha that there were various amounts of illicit money which is being moved out of the country. They were reported by various persons or institutions. He added that these estimations are based on various sets of facts, data, methods and assumptions which led to varying inferences. At the end he stated that there is no official estimation as of to how much black money has been stashed abroad of if black money is taken out of country.

The previous UPA government had in March 2011 asked the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), National Council of Applied Economic research (NCAER) and National Institute of financial Management (NIFM) to estimate unaccounted financial gain and wealth within and out of doors the country.

Jaitley said, reports received from these institutes are under examination of the government. Replying to a separate question, he aforementioned the governments of Switzerland, Great Britain and Spain haven’t provided details of any black money accounts. An unofficial estimate of illegal money stashed away overseas puts it somewhere between $466 billion and $1.4 trillion.

Image credit: Arun Jaitley image by Deccan Herald is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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