How much Indian black money is stashed away in Swiss banks? Nearly $1 trillion, says this book

Ever since the Modi government rode to power with the promise of bringing back the billions stashed away by Indians in tax havens abroad, they have been constantly reminded of this promise. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) drafted a new Black Money Act on May 11, 2015, and also announced a voluntary disclosure scheme till September 30, 2016, for declaring assets and until December 31, 2016, to pay tax at 30 per cent and penalty at 30 per cent.

In October, the government announced that it had collected Rs 4,147 crores ($623 million) as part of this scheme. Various estimates put the amount of black money from India anywhere between $181 billion and $1.8 trillion dollars. Regardless of which estimate one takes, the fact remains that even a fraction of the amount abroad has not been recovered.

Two examples suggest that governments may not be serious. The response of the government in the Supreme Court (in the Ram Jethmalani case) indicated that tax demands of Rs 71,848 crores had been raised against Hasan Ali Khan, his wife and other associates. If this is the tax demand, then the income on which this would have been raised could be more than Rs 1,50,000 crores....

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