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A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any program, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income. The U.S. Government's Social Security Trust Fund, which oversees $2.57 trillion in assets, is the world's largest public pension fund. Pension funds typically have large amounts of money to invest and are the major investors in listed and private companies. They are especially important to the stock market where large institutional investors dominate. The largest 300 pension funds collectively hold about USD$6 trillion in assets. In 2012, PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that pension funds worldwide hold over $33.9 trillion in assets, the largest for any category of institutional investor ahead of mutual funds, insurance companies, currency reserves, sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, or private equity.
An offshore bank is a bank that is operated and regulated under international banking license, which usually prohibits the bank from establishing any business activities in the jurisdiction of establishment. Due to less regulation and transparency, accounts with offshore banks were often used to hide undeclared income. Since the 1980s, jurisdictions that provide financial services to nonresidents on a big scale can be referred to as offshore financial centres. OFCs often also levy little or no corporation tax and/or personal income and high direct taxes such as duty, making the cost of living high.
Tax evasion or tax fraud is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the taxpayer's tax liability, and it includes dishonest tax reporting, declaring less income, profits or gains than the amounts actually earned, overstating deductions, bribing authorities and hiding money in secret locations.
Tax amnesty allows taxpayers to voluntarily disclose and pay tax owing in exchange for avoiding tax evasion penalties. It is a limited-time opportunity for a specified group of taxpayers to pay a defined amount, in exchange for forgiveness of a tax liability relating to previous tax periods. It typically expires when some authority begins a tax investigation of the past-due tax.
Income tax in India is governed by Entry 82 of the Union List of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India, empowering the central government to tax non-agricultural income; agricultural income is defined in Section 10(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961. Income-tax law consists of the 1961 act, Income Tax Rules 1962, Notifications and Circulars issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), annual Finance Acts, and judicial pronouncements by the Supreme and high courts.
Taxes in India are levied by the Central Government and the State Governments by virtue of powers conferred to them from the Constitution of India. Some minor taxes are also levied by the local authorities such as the Municipality.
Corruption in India is an issue which affects economy of central, state, and local government agencies. Corruption is blamed for stunting the economy of India. A study conducted by Transparency International in 2005 recorded that more than 62% of Indians had at some point or another paid a bribe to a public official to get a job done. In 2008, another report showed that about 50% of Indians had first hand experience of paying bribes or using contacts to get services performed by public offices. In Transparency International's 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index, which scored 180 countries on a scale from 0 to 100, India scored 39. When ranked by score, India ranked 93rd among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 90, the worst score was 11, and the average score was 43. For comparison with regional scores, the highest score among the countries of the Asia Pacific region was 85, the lowest score was 17, and the average score was 45. Various factors contribute to corruption, including officials siphoning money from government social welfare schemes. Examples include the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the National Rural Health Mission. Other areas of corruption include India's trucking industry, which is forced to pay billions of rupees in bribes annually to numerous regulatory and police stops on interstate highways.
The National Pension System (NPS) is a defined-contribution pension system in India regulated by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance of the Government of India. National Pension System Trust was established by PFRDA as per the provisions of the Indian Trusts Act of 1882 to take care of the assets and funds under this scheme for the best interest of the subscriber.
The Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS) was a very unconventional but successful step among Indian economic policies. It would give an opportunity to the income tax or wealth tax defaulters to disclose their undisclosed income at the prevailing tax rates. This scheme would also ensure that the laws relating to economic offences would not be applicable for those defaulters. Over 350,000 people disclosed their income and assets under this scheme, which brought a revenue of ₹78 billion (US$900 million) to the Indian finance ministry. The scheme was closed on 31 December 1997. The Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram hoped, "It is my faith that given a chance, the people of India (would) come clean of the black money."
The Income-tax Act, 1961 is the charging statute of Income Tax in India. It provides for levy, administration, collection and recovery of Income Tax. The Government of India brought a draft statute called the "Direct Taxes Code" intended to replace the Income Tax Act, 1961 and the Wealth Tax Act, 1957. However the bill was later scrapped.
The 2011 Union Budget of India was presented by Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister of India on 28 February 2011. This budgetary proposals came into effect from 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012.
In India, black money is funds earned on the black market, on which income and other taxes have not been paid. Also, the unaccounted money that is concealed from the tax administrator is called black money. The black money is accumulated by the criminals, smugglers, and tax-evaders. Around ₹22,000 crores are supposed to have been accumulated by the criminals for vested interests, though writ petitions in the supreme court estimate this to be even larger, at ₹900 lakh crores.
Taxation may involve payments to a minimum of two different levels of government: central government through SARS or to local government. Prior to 2001 the South African tax system was "source-based", where in income is taxed in the country where it originates. Since January 2001, the tax system was changed to "residence-based" wherein taxpayers residing in South Africa are taxed on their income irrespective of its source. Non residents are only subject to domestic taxes.
The Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility (LDF) is an agreement between the governments of Liechtenstein and the United Kingdom which enables UK citizens to declare previously undisclosed assets to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC). The LDF, which came into force on 1 September 2009, is a subsidy designed to encourage individuals voluntarily to regularize their affairs. The scheme offers more favourable terms than other tax investigations, with participants normally receiving a fine of 10 per cent of tax due instead of 100 per cent, with tax interest and penalties only sought for the previous 10 years rather than the previous 20 years.
The Income Tax Department is a government agency undertaking direct tax collection of the government of the Republic of India. It functions under the Department of Revenue of the Ministry of Finance. The Income Tax Department is headed by the apex body Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). The main responsibility of the Income Tax Department is to enforce various direct tax laws, most important among these being the Income-tax Act, 1961, to collect revenue for the government of India. It also enforces other economic laws such as the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988, and the Black Money Act, 2015.
Black Money and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 is an Act of the Parliament of India. It aims to curb black money, or undisclosed foreign assets and income and imposes tax and penalty on such income. The Act has been passed by both the Houses of the Parliament. The Act has received the assent of the President of India on 26 May 2015. It came into effect from 1 July 2015.
On 8 November 2016, the Government of India announced the demonetisation of all ₹500 and ₹1,000 banknotes of the Mahatma Gandhi Series. It also announced the issuance of new ₹500 and ₹2,000 banknotes in exchange for the demonetised banknotes. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that this decision would curtail the shadow economy, increase cashless transactions and reduce the use of illicit and counterfeit cash to fund illegal activity and terrorism.
Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana, 2016 (PMGKY) is a scheme launched by the Narendra Modi led Government of India in December 2016 on the lines of the Income declaration scheme, 2016 (IDS) launched earlier in the year. A part of the Taxation Laws Act, 2016, the scheme provides an opportunity to declare unaccounted wealth and black money in a confidential manner and avoid prosecution after paying a fine of 50% on the undisclosed income. An additional 25% of the undisclosed income is invested in the scheme which can be refunded after four years, without any interest.
The 2017 Union Budget of India is the
The 2020 Union Budget of India was presented by the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman on 1 February 2020, as her second budget. This is the second budget of Narendra Modi-led NDA government's second term. The Economic Survey for 2019–2020 was released on 31 January 2020, a day before the budget. Before the budget speech the report of the 15th Finance Commission was tabled by the Finance Minister.
References
- ↑ "Budget 2016: 'Step towards a black money free India'". The Financial Express. 3 March 2016. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
- ↑ "Four-month window to declare black money opens on June 1: Finance Ministry". The Indian Express. 14 May 2016. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
- ↑ "Government to ensure that black money amnesty window is not misused by offenders under tax radar". The Economic Times. Retrieved 19 January 2017.
- ↑ "Mahesh Shah, who declared Rs 13,860 cr under IDS, let off after questioning", Business Standard , 4 December 2016