The number of new taxpayers in India more than doubled in the past five months and about 3 trillion rupees (US$47 billion) came back to the banks after the government’s cash ban brought more people into the fold of the formal economy, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
“Black money which was hidden was forced to come to the mainstream,” Modi said in his Independence Day address at the Red Fort in New Delhi. “This is not government research, this is from external experts.”
Vowing to continue the crackdown on unaccounted wealth, Modi said more than 2 trillion rupees has reached banks after the government withdrew high-value currency notes in November, and deposits of 1.75 trillion rupees are under scrutiny.
The introduction of the landmark national sales tax on July 1 will further boost transparency, Modi said.
New tax filings have more than doubled to 5.6 million from April 1 to Aug. 5, from 2.2 million a year earlier, Modi said.
The government has identified 1.8 million people whose assets exceed their known sources of income, and 450,000 of them have come clean and have sought to pay up, he said.
About “100,000 people who had never heard of, or paid, income tax have been forced to do it,” he said.
About 300,000 shell companies came to light after demonetization, Modi said, adding that the government has since shut down more than half of them, he said.
“In some cases, there were 400 companies operating from a single address, and there was no inquiry or scrutiny,” Modi said.
Modi, who swept to power in 2014 on promise to eliminate unaccounted cash, can count the currency clampdown and the July 1 launch of a uniform goods and services tax (GST) among his biggest policy decisions. While the economy is still recovering from demonetization, there are signs that the GST has retarded activity in the near term.
The note ban got money into banks, prompting them to cut interest rates, Modi said.
The GST has also reduced time for transporting goods by 30 percent by eliminating check posts at state borders, he said.
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