Black Money

India’s International Black Money Can’t Be Brought Back Though It Can Keep Coming Back

Black money has been a hot topic among us Indians over the past few years, especially Indian black money that has been stashed abroad, over the years. Possibilities of getting this money back to India have been raised and extensively discussed and can lead to flaring up of tempers on the University of WhatsApp.

In this scenario, any news item on the Indian black money stashed abroad tends to fly off the charts. The University of WhatsApp has been buzzing over the last few days on the news of Indian black money in Swiss Banks having gone up in 2020. This has led to surprise among the supporters of the present dispensation and happiness among those against it.

As the Press Trust of India reported: “Funds parked by Indian individuals and firms in Swiss banks, including through India-based branches and other financial institutions, jumped to 2.55 billion Swiss francs (over Rs 20,700 crore) in 2020.” This is a jump from 899 million Swiss francs (Rs 6,625 crore) at the end of 2019.

The Press Trust of India rightly doesn’t use the term ‘black money’ in reporting the funds that Indian firms and individuals have parked with Swiss Banks. Some amount of money can be taken out of the country legally every year and be deposited in Swiss banks (or other foreign banks for that matter).

This is not to say that all the funds that Indians have placed with Swiss banks will be kosher. But the fact of the matter is there is no way of specifically knowing that how much of it is black money. Black money is basically money on which taxes have not been paid.

Of course, after the Press Trust of India reported on it, other news media latched on to this story. In their reports, the phrase funds parked in Swiss banks was replaced with the term black money.

And soon headlines which said that Indian black money in Swiss bank jumps, were all over the place. Politicians from other parties also reacted to this piece of news and said that this was because of increased corruption under the Bhartiya Janata Party. This shows us clearly why nuance is neither a strength in politics or on the University of WhatsApp, for that matter.

The government immediately issued a press release, in which it said: “Media reports allude to the fact that the figures reported are official figures reported by banks to Swiss National Bank (SNB) and do not indicate the quantum of much debated alleged black money held by Indians in Switzerland.”

In all this noise, the more important points on Indian black money which goes abroad or doesn’t come back in the first place, were never made.

Let’s look at them here.

1) The money that Indians had parked in Swiss banks in 2020 has been estimated to be at Rs 20,700 crore. One dollar was worth around Rs 74 on an average in 2020. This works out to $2.96 billion. For the ease of discussion, let’s round this to $3 billion.

Even if all this was black money (which it isn’t), no media house bothered to ask a very basic question. How come the Indian black money in Swiss banks was just $3 billion? $3 billion on its own is a large number. But in the context of a nation which has had a history of a huge black money, this isn’t even small change.

2) A lot of black money is generated through trade misinvoicing. As Global Financial Integrity (GFI), an organisation which specialises in this area, defines this as “a method for moving money illicitly across borders which involves the deliberate falsification of the value, volume, and/or type of commodity in an international commercial transaction of goods or services by at least one party to the transaction.”

Imports coming into the country can be over invoiced. In that process, money can go out of the country without the required taxes being paid on it. Further, imports can be under invoiced to not pay customs duty.

In a similar way, exports going out of the country can be under invoiced and money that should have come back to the country, and taxes should have been paid on it, continues to stay outside its borders.

A number is put to this misinvoicing through the value gap analysis. As GFI explains in a report: “For example, if Ecuador reported exporting US$20 million in bananas to the United States in 2016, but the US reported having imported only US$15 million in bananas from Ecuador that year, this would reflect a mismatch, or value gap, of US$5 million in the reported trade of this product between the two partners for that year.”

While data on imports and exports is never perfect, a significant portion of any value gap is a result of misinvoicing, in order to not pay tax on money earned and ensure that it continues to stay abroad, or to simply move money out of a country. This is the largest component of illicit financial flows globally. In India, we call this international black money.

3) As per GFI, the average value gap of India from 2008 to 2017, a period of 10 years, stood at $78 billion per year, which in total amounts to $780 billion. This means that a significant portion of $780 billion would have left India during these years or should have come back to India, but never did. Of course, this is just one period of ten years that we are talking about. All this didn’t just start happening in 2008. Now compare this with the $3 billion lying in Swiss banks. That’s not even small change.

Also, it is worth remembering that we are talking about black money through just the misinvoicing route. As GFI points out: “Many illicit transactions occur in cash to prevent an incriminating paper trail. For these many reasons, our estimates are likely very conservative.”

Of course, this problem is not specific to India. China, Russia and Mexico were ahead of India, on this front, with an yearly average of $482.4 billion, $92.6 billion and $82.5 billion, respectively, during the period.

4) Take the case of 2016. The value gap of the misinvoiced imports and exports stood at $74 billion. As GFI points out: “The analysis shows that the estimated potential loss of revenue to the government is $13.0 billion for 2016. To put this figure in context, this amount represents 5.5 percent of the value of India’s total government revenue collections in 2016.” Given this, the government loses out on a significant amount of taxes because of international black money.

5) The question is, if so much money on which adequate amount of tax has not been paid, is going abroad every year or simply staying there, why doesn’t it reflect in the Swiss bank numbers. This is where things get interesting.

As the government press release referred to earlier points out: “These statistics do not include the money that Indians, NRIs or others might have in Swiss banks in the names of third–country entities.” This could be one possible reason.

6) The common perception in India is that all the black money that leaves India (or simply doesn’t come back) is in Swiss banks. This is totally wrong. There are around 70 tax havens all over the world. An estimate made by The Economist in 2013 suggested that: “Nobody really knows how much money is stashed away: estimates vary from way below to way above $20 trillion.”

And this money is spread all across the world and isn’t just held in banks in Switzerland. As Gabriel Zucman writes in The Hidden Wealth of Nations – The Scourge of Tax Havens, points out:

“In the past, Swiss bankers provided all services: carrying out the investment strategy, keeping securities under custody, hiding the true identity of owners by the way of famous numbered accounts. Today, only securities custody really remains in their purview. The rest has been moved offsite to other tax havens—Luxembourg, the Virgin Islands, or Panama—all of which function in symbiosis. This is the great organisation of international wealth management.”

Given this, India’s international black money could possibly be anywhere in the world. Also, a lot of this money is held “through intermediaries of shell companies headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, or foundations domiciled in Liechtenstein.” This ensures that the money is not easily traceable to those who took it out of the country or decided not to bring it back.

7) It is worth remembering here that all the focus on black money in India should have made people who stash their black money abroad, smarter. Clearly, when everyone and their grandmother knows about Swiss banks, the black money wallahs are bound to be cautious and ensure that they spread their money around across the world.

8) So, the question is how good are India’s chances of getting this money back? The money that has left Indian shores or should have come to India but never did, could be anywhere. Tax havens maintain secrecy to ensure that they remain attractive options for those who are looking to hide their black money. Hence, recovery will continue to remain difficult. If even a small part of this money is to be recovered, a massive amount of international cooperation will be needed.

9) While it might be difficult to recover black money from outside India’s shores, some of it does keep coming back to India through the foreign direct investment route. A lot of this money comes in through countries like Mauritius, Singapore, Netherlands and Cyprus. In 2020-21, 44% of the total foreign direct investment coming into India, came from these countries. This was a low figure in comparison each of the five years before that, when the proportion had stood at more than 60%. Of course, not all this money is India’s international black money, but a significant portion might be.

As the finance ministry white paper on black money published in May 2012 had pointed out:

“It is apparent that the investments are routed through these jurisdictions for [the] avoidance of taxes and/or for concealing the identities from the revenue authorities of the ultimate investors, many of whom could actually be Indian residents, who have invested in their own companies, though a process known as round-tripping.”

India’s international black money is also round-tripped to be invested in stocks. 

To conclude, instead of trying to chase this black money and get it back, it makes more sense for us to create economic conditions where this black money comes back to India and is invested in different projects. We should also try and simplify our tax system to ensure that the incentives to generate black money in the first place, come down. 

But then that hardly makes for great rhetoric and management of narrative, which is what Indian politics seems to be all about these days. As Thomas Sowell writes in Knowledge and Decisions: “Sober analysis seldom has the appeal of a ringing rhetoric.”

And that’s something worth thinking about.

0.16% of India’s Population Pays 76% of Income Tax Paid by Individuals

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A couple of days back, the ministry of finance published income tax data for assessment year 2015-2016. The income tax returns for the income earned during the financial year 2014-2015 were filed in the assessment year 2015-2016.

I had written a similar piece last year based on data published for the assessment ears 2013-2014 and 2014-2015. This piece is an extension of that.

We now have data for four assessment years starting with 2012-2013 and up to 2015-2016, and it makes for an interesting reading. Let’s start with Table 1.

Table 1:

Assessment yearTotal number of returns filed by individualsTotal number of individuals paying income tax
2012-20132,87,66,2581,25,18,636
2013-20143,35,85,2941,66,47,061
2014-20153,65,13,0341,90,97,559
2015-20164,07,39,7992,05,72,727

Source: incometaxindia.gov.in 

What does Table 1 tell us? It tells us very clearly that both the number of tax returns filed by individuals as well as the number of people paying tax has been growing over the years.

While, the total number of returns being filed by individuals has risen at 12.3 per cent per year, the total number of individuals paying income tax has risen at the rate of 18 per cent per year and that is clearly good news.

Now let’s take a look at the proportion of people filing income tax returns, who also pay income tax (in Table 2).

Table 2:

Assessment yearTotal number of returns filed by individualsTotal number of individuals paying income taxProportion of people filing income tax returns who also pay income tax
2012-20132,87,66,2581,25,18,63643.52%
2013-20143,35,85,2941,66,47,06149.57%
2014-20153,65,13,0341,90,97,55952.30%
2015-20164,07,39,7992,05,72,72750.50%

Source: incometaxindia.gov.in 

Table 2 clearly tells us that only half of people filing income tax returns pay income tax. This ratio is way too low. What this basically means is that the current system is so structured that it is generating a lot of work for chartered accountants and others who are in the business of filing income tax returns.

How do things look vis a vis overall population? Let’s take a look at Table 3.

Table 3:

Assessment yearTotal number of returns filed by individuals (in Crore)PopulationProportion of population filing income tax returns
(in Crore)*
2012-20132.88126.42.28%
2013-20143.36127.92.63%
2014-20153.65129.52.82%
2015-20164.07130.93.11%

* Population data sourced from World Bank.
Source: Author calculations on data sourced from incometaxindia.gov.in 

Table 3 tells us that only 3.1 per cent of the country’s population actually files income tax returns. This figure has constantly been improving. Now let’s take a look at what proportion of the country’s population which actually pays tax in Table 4.

Table 4:

Assessment yearTotal number of individuals paying income tax (in Crore)Population (in Crore)*Proportion of population paying income tax
2012-20131.25126.40.99%
2013-20141.66127.91.30%
2014-20151.91129.51.47%
2015-20162.06130.91.57%

* Population data sourced from World Bank.
Source: Author calculations on data sourced from incometaxindia.gov.in 

Hence, around 1.57 per cent of the country’s population paid any income tax in 2015-2016. While a figure of 1.57 per cent sounds atrociously low on the whole, things do not turn out as bad, once we take other factors into account.

Agricultural income is tax free. A bulk of country’s workforce is dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. The labour force participation rate of women in case of India is very low, i.e., most women don’t work for a living. Over and above this, there are the young and the old, who aren’t making any money or enough money for that matter. And India is a young country with a bulk of its population being under 25 years or age. Once we adjust for all these factors the numbers in Table 3 and Table 4 do not look so bad.

Having said that, there are inconsistencies which need to be pointed out. There were only 57,399 individuals who have a returned income of greater than Rs 1 crore. Also, there were only 1,68,318 individuals with a returned income of greater than Rs 50 lakh in the assessment year 2015-2016 (Returned Income is the total income after chapter VI-A deduction and deductions u/s 10A/10AA (wherever applicable)). This is a tad difficult to believe when we look at other data points like the number of luxury cars that Indians buy every year, the number of Indians going abroad etc. Hence, there is a proportion of the population which is not declaring its taxes properly.

Of the 2.06 crore individuals who paid tax, a bulk of taxpayers (around 1.85 crore) paid a tax of less than Rs 1.5 lakh, during the assessment year 2015-2016. Take a look at Table 5.

Table 5: Tax payable less than or equal to Rs 1.5 lakh

Assessment yearNumber of individualsTotal tax paid (in Rs Crore)Average tax paid (in Rs)
2012-20131,11,28,41923,44621,069
2013-2014150,64.99737,10724.631
2014-20151,71,79,47443,96425,591
2015-20161,84,87,38744,61524,133

Source: Author calculations on data sourced from incometaxindia.gov.in 

So, the average tax paid by those paying a tax of less than Rs 1.5 lakh was Rs 24,133 during the assessment year 2015-2016. This basically means that the bulk of the tax is being paid by those paying a tax of greater than Rs 1.5 lakh. Let’s take a look at Table 6.

Table 6: Tax payable greater than Rs 1.5 lakh

Assessment yearNumber of individualsTax paid (in Rs Crore)Average tax paid (in Rs)
2012-201313,90,21791,1096,55,358
2013-201415,82,0641,02,3936,47,211
2014-201519,18,0851,47,2447,67,661
2015-201620,85,3401,43,4166,87,734

Source: Author calculations on data from www.incometaxindia.gov.in 

Now compare Table 5 with Table 6 and it is more or less clear that those paying a tax of greater than Rs 1.5 lakh during the assessment year 2015-2016, even though they are very small in number, paid the bulk of the individual income tax. Now let’s take a look at Table 7.

Table 7:

Assessment yearTotal tax paid by individualsTotal tax paid by individuals paying more than Rs 1.5 lakh tax per yearProportion
2012-20131,14,55591,10979.50%
2013-20141,39,5001,02,39373.40%
2014-20151,91,2081,47,24477%
2015-20161,88,0311,43,41676.30%

Source: Author calculations on data from www.incometaxindia.gov.in 

Hence, those paying an income tax of greater than Rs 1.5 lakh, paid 76.3 per cent of the income tax paid by individuals during the assessment year 2015-2016. It would be interesting to see what proportion of the population do they make up for. Let’s look at Table 8.

Table 8:

Assessment yearNumber of individuals who paid an income tax of greater than Rs 1.5 lakhPopulation (in Crore)Proportion of populationProportion of income tax paid by individuals
2012-201313,90,217126.40.11%79.50%
2013-201415,82,064127.90.12%73.40%
2014-201519,18,085129.50.15%77%
2015-201620,85,340130.90.16%76.30%

Source: Author calculations on data from www.incometaxindia.gov.in 

Hence, in the assessment year 2015-2016, 0.16 per cent of the population paid 76.3 per cent i.e. more than three-fourths of the income tax collected from individuals. Indeed, this is worrying. But what is more worrying is that India had only 1,68,318 individuals with an income of greater than Rs 50 lakh in the assessment year 2015-2016. This just doesn’t sound right.

The column was originally published on December 22, 2017.

Of Falling Real Estate Prices, Dr Arvind Panagariya and the Art of Continuing to Suck Up

220px-Arvind_Panagariya

Dr Arvind Panagariya, the former vice-chairman of the Niti Aayog, today in a column titled Demonetisation: Evaluating the Critics, in the Business Standard, writes: “The second avenue through which demonetisation has directly expunged unaccounted wealth is real estate…Unsurprisingly, an attack on unaccounted cash struck at the heart of this black wealth by cutting real estate prices by a quarter.”

There are multiple questions that this statement raises:

1) What is the source for this data? This isn’t exactly a conversation between two property dealers, or two prospective real estate buyers, who can quote any offhand numbers, while having a conversation. This is a statement being made by someone who was at the top of an economic institution run by the Indian government. This is a statement by an economist working in a top university in the United States.

Also, if real estate prices have fallen by 25 per cent after demonetisation, why isn’t this visible in official data sources. Take the case of Reserve Bank of India’s All India House Price Index, which has been plotted as Figure 1.

Figure 1: 

Figure 1 clearly shows that housing prices across the country have been on their way up. There has “clearly” been no dip, as Dr Panagariya claims. How do things look if we plot one-year return instead of index values? Let’s take a look at Figure 2, which does that.

Figure 2: 

Figure 2 tells us clearly that the one-year return in real estate has been falling over the last six and a half years. This trend started much before demonetisation took place. Also, how have the returns been post demonetisation? Between the end of December 2016 and June 2017 (the latest data available), real estate prices as per the All India House Price Index have gone up by 4.3 per cent. The returns between September 2016 and June 2017, have been 6.9 per cent.

Other than RBI’s All India House Price Index, there is NHB’s Residex. As of now this index has data only up to March 2017. And the one year median return between March 2016 and March 2017, as per this index, across 49 cities, was 2.8 per cent. This is very low. But where is the 25 per cent fall that Dr Panagariya has written about?

2) For a moment let’s assume that Dr Panagariya is right and real estate prices have fallen by 25 per cent. If real estate price all across the country have fallen by 25 per cent on an average, then there will be cities/town/localities where the price has fallen by more than 25 per cent. Which are these places? Can Dr Panagariya provide us with a list? This would make for a super investment right now.

Let’s say there is this town where real estate prices have fallen by 50 per cent post demonetisation. It is worth remembering that a 50 per cent loss wipes off a 100 per gain. (If the price of an asset moves from Rs 50 to Rs 100 that makes for a 100 per cent gain. When it falls back to Rs 50 that is a 50 per cent loss). If there exists such a town, it would make for a great real estate investment right now. Can Dr Panagariya provide us with names of a few such places?

3) Also, if prices have fallen by 25 per cent, why are real estate transactions not happening? Why has the total number of unsold homes of real estate companies, only continued to grow? It is worth remembering here that a 25 per cent fall within a time period of a year, is a huge fall. Falls like these in case of real estate, only happen once in a few decades. And if something like this has happened, as Dr Panagariya claims, then why aren’t people buying? Interest rates on home loans have also fallen post demonetisation.

Take a look at Figure 3. It plots the growth in home loans outstanding with banks.

Figure 3: 

Figure 3 clearly shows that the growth in home loans outstanding has fallen post demonetisation. What this means is that people are not buying as many homes as they were in the past. If prices have fallen by 25 per cent post demonetisation, people would have bought homes and the curve in Figure 3 would slope upwards i.e. people would take on more and more home loans to buy homes.

4) Further, if real estate prices have fallen by 25 per cent, as claimed by Dr Panagariya, it is time that the state governments cut the ready reckoner rates on which stamp duty needs to be paid, by a similar proportion. This should be fairly easy given that BJP governments govern most of the big states across India and a direction from the PMO should be suffice to get them to do the needful. But nothing of that sort has happened. Why hasn’t this been done till date, is a question that only Dr Panagariya can answer.

5) To conclude, it is safe to say that Dr Panagariya has just made up this data, in order to justify demonetisation. It’s a sad day today, when an Indian economist, working in one of the best American universities has had to fudge data in order to please his former political bosses.

The irony is that Dr Panagariya is no longer a part of the government. And he doesn’t really need to say things which do not hold up against data, unless, he is looking for another stint with the Modi government. That changes things.

The column originally appeared on November 13, 2017.

A Real Estate Story That Everybody Should Read

250px-Underconstruction_Building

I am in Delhi these days.

And Delhi and the National Capital Region around it, as you would know, dear reader, have their share of real estate stories.

There are stories of builders who have taken the money from prospective buyers and not delivered.

There are stories about builders who have taken the money from prospective buyers and simply disappeared.

There are stories about builders who have taken the money from prospective buyers and abandoned construction midway.

There are stories about prospective buyers continuing to pay their EMIs with no idea of when their dream home will be delivered. Meanwhile, they also continue to pay rent.

There are stories about builders now demanding a bailout from the government.

All in all, the overall real estate story in Delhi and the National Capital Region, is a mess.
Nevertheless, recently I came across a slightly different sort of story, which tells us the different kind of problems that people face with real estate and why sometimes there are really no solutions to a problem.

One of my relatives, who are now very old, have lived a good part of their lives in a DDA colony in South Delhi. The flat was bought in the early 1980s at around Rs 2.5-3 lakh and is now worth close to Rs 3 crore. Of course, South Delhi is a great place to live.

All the everyday amenities from banks to vegetable vendors to milk booths to medicine shops etc., everything is within walking distance and almost everything you can think of is home-delivered.

But the relatives I am talking about here are now old and want to move to a different part of Delhi, to be close to their immediate family, which stays there. That part of Delhi is much cheaper than South Delhi. A similar sort of flat can easily be bought at around 40-50 per cent of the price in South Delhi.

If things work as smoothly, as they are supposed to in theory, this would mean selling the flat in South Delhi for around Rs 3 crore, buying a new one for around Rs 1.5 crore and paying a capital gains tax on the remaining Rs 1.5 crore. And then, they can live happily ever after.

Now only if things were as smooth as that.

As I well known, no real estate transaction can happen in Delhi-National Capital Region in full white money i.e. the full payment is made through a cheque, demand draft, bank transfer etc. A part of the transaction will always have to be carried out in black, which means a payment needs to be made in cash.

How would a Rs 3 crore sale go? Around Rs 1-1.3 crore would be paid in black. The remaining would be in white. Typically, when this happens, the black money is then used to buy more flats, and this is how the vicious cycle of black money continues.

In this case, the flat in the new locality costs around Rs 1.5 crore. Of this around Rs 50 lakh will have to be paid in black. And the remaining in white. This means that of the Rs 1-1.3 crore of the original black money received, around Rs 50-80 lakh will remain.

This is a lot of black money for someone who has never really dealt with black money. What does he do with this black money? At his age, there is no point in investing in more flats (given that the real estate sector is down in the dumps and also the fact that more money would be needed to do the same) or buying gold for that matter.

Given this conundrum, the sale is stuck. At his age, there is no possibility of a home loan as well.

In fact, this is an excellent example of a situation where an individual is asset heavy and liquidity light. Of course, in this case, he didn’t arrive at this situation because of the choices he made. Over the years, that is exactly how the situation turned out to be.

A part of Delhi, which no one really wanted to go and live in, turned out to be its most posh part, over a period of three decades and more. And given, this real estate prices sky-rocketed. A flat which cost Rs 3 lakh, was worth 100 times or Rs 3 crore, nearly 35 years later. This means a whopping return of 14 per cent per year (without taking any maintenance cost into account). In fact, at its peak price nearly five years back, the flat would have gone for anywhere between Rs 3.5-4 crore.

Of course, from the investment point of view, it has been a superb investment. But 35 years later, the situation is such that the flat cannot be sold. And this is a lesson for everyone who believes that real estate is the best way to invest.

The biggest problem with real estate is that it lacks the liquidity of other forms of investment, even though the returns might be superb. While, in this case my relatives can continue to live in this flat, so it doesn’t matter much. But there are other cases when people need liquidity to meet expenses, like the higher education of their children, their weddings, a medical emergency, and so on. In a real estate market like the one that exists today, selling a property quickly at the right price (if at all there is anything like that in Indian real estate) is never easy.

Of course, one can always take a loan against property, but then even that has to be repaid and the regular income may not be good enough to repay that loan.

This is something that everybody who swears by real estate as the best form of investment, should keep in mind.

Real estate may not have the liquidity, when you need money the most.

What happens then?

The column originally appeared on Equitymaster on October 24, 2017.

 

 

The Orwellian Economics of Modi Govt

George_Orwell_press_photo

Almost, every other day I get an email or an sms from banks asking me to link my accounts and my Aadhar number.

The email typically says: “The Prevention of Money Laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2005 (“PML Rules 2005”) have been amended with effect from June 1, 2017 to require Aadhaar for every bank account. All existing Bank accounts have to be verified with Aadhaar by the banks by 31st December,2017, failing which the accounts will become inoperative.”

At the same time, a mobile phone company also sends out reminders at regular intervals asking me to link my phone number with my Aadhar number. The couple of times I visited their office in the recent past, I have been reminded of the same.

The last time I logged on to an airline website to carry out a web-checkin, I was asked for my Aadhar number, though this was optional.

When I applied for an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) for my last book, I was asked for my Aadhar number. An Aadhar number is now required for access to a whole host of government welfare programmes. The idea is to ensure that only those who genuinely qualify for the programme have access to it.

On the whole, the idea seems to be to use Aadhar to identify those people who are not paying their share of income tax, by figuring out their spending patterns.

On August 23, 2017, a notification was introduced which brought jewellers with a turnover of more than Rs 2 crore, under the Prevent of Money Laundering Act.

The limit for reporting transactions under the Act is at Rs 50,000. Basically, anyone using cash to buy gold jewellery over Rs 50,000 had to show his or her PAN card. Before this, since December 2015, anyone buying gold above Rs 2 lakh, had to show a PAN card.
With the August notification, the limit for showing the PAN card was lowered from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 50,000. Recently, the August 23 notification was rescinded. In doing so, the limit till which gold could be bought in cash without providing any identification jumped up again to Rs 2 lakh.

This, brings multiple questions to the fore. First and foremost, when every bank account holder needs to link his bank account to the Aadhar number, why doesn’t the same rule apply to anyone buying gold using cash. When every mobile phone user is being pestered to link his mobile number to his Aadhar number, why doesn’t the same rule apply to anyone buying gold using cash.

If it is important to clearly identify bank accounts and mobile numbers, it is also important to clearly identify who is buying gold. The question that arises here is that who buys gold in cash.

As the report titled A Study in Widening of Tax Base and Tackling Black Money produced by the business lobby FICCI points out: “The black money holders invest in bullion and Jewellery to protect the value of their black money from inflationary depreciation. Cash sales in the gold and Jewellery trade gives the buyer an option to convert black money into gold and Jewellery, while it gives the trader the option of keeping his unaccounted wealth in the form of stock, not disclosed in the books or valued at less than market price.”

The point being those who have black money like to buy gold in its various forms, using cash. If cash sales of gold need to be attacked it is important that some sort of identity of the individual buying gold be established.

Nevertheless, the Narendra Modi government doesn’t seem to think like that. Different rules for different people. As George Orwell writes towards the end of his brilliant book Animal Farm: “There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran: All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

The column was originally published in the Bangalore Mirror on October 11, 2017.