Declare foreign asset by Sep 30 or face consequence: FinMin

With less than 10 days being left for close of compliance window under the black money law, the government Monday said there will be no harassment to foreign asset holders who declare their wealth by September 30. However, the Finance Ministry warned that failure to declare an undisclosed foreign asset "will entail severe consequences", including higher penalty, prosecution, and may also result in forfeiture of assets under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. "The fears of harassment of the declarants expressed in certain fora are also totally unfounded," it said while asking people to disclose their unaccounted foreign assets by September 30, the last day of compliance window under the new black money law.

The Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 has been enacted to deal with the menace of black money stashed abroad. The Act provides for a one-time compliance opportunity which will end on September 30, 2015. The 90-day compliance window has been provided for people to pay tax and penalty of 60 per cent on undisclosed overseas assets and come clean.

The Ministry further said the information contained in the declaration will be kept confidential as Section 138 of the Income-tax Act is applicable to the declarations. "The process of filing declaration is simple and the declaration can be filed online also," it added.