Thirty per cent or bust, take your pickMichael Jackson would have loved VDIS. He was among the first to sing, ``It doesn't matter if it's black or white.'' Despite its multi-crore advertisement effort, the Revenue Department could not improve upon this line. Deposit 30 per cent of your undeclared income with the Government and then it doesn't matter ``if it's black or white.''Even as the ads cajole and coerce the industry into bringing the greenbacks to the banks, the media is having a great time giving authoritative figures on how much the VDIS would garner for the Government. Figures on the how much the Government hoped to net ranged from Rs 3,000 crore to Rs 6,000 crore. The Government itself is very cautious. It has made it clear that there are no targets for VDIS collections. The only thing it claims is that the collections will be many times more than what has been achieved under previous disclosure schemes.A carrot and stick measures have been used to tandem to smoke the black money into the open. Raids were conducted on many brokers, businessmen and large companies like REPL to ensure that nobody takes the VDIS lightly. Then the Government said that raids would stop. As a ``goodwill gesture'' to tax evaders who are are taking advantage of the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS) in large numbers, the Income-Tax department said it would keep ``searches'' in abeyance for the time being.The decision seems to have been prompted by the fact that a large number of tax evaders have started coming out with undisclosed income towards the close of the scheme. The VDIS will remain open till midnight on December 31. Although there is a demand from several quarters that the scheme be extended to March 31, 1998, the Government might not be able to do so because extension would require either approval of Parliament or an ordinance by the President. It is questionable whether the care-taker Government has the authority to recommend extension of one its most controversial decisions of giving amnesty to tax evaders.The `unusual' declarations under VDIS are being examined by the revenue officials. They claim that over 200 `unusual' cases - a majority involving declarations of huge quantities of silver - have already been detected and kept aside for further action. Calcutta tops this list and is followed by Kanpur and New Delhi for making `unusual' declarations. In some cases, joint families have declared up to 2,000 kg of silver.Gloomy 1998In its ``Report on Currency and Finance, 1996-97'' released last week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has presented a pessimistic economic outlook for the current fiscal saying that the mounting fiscal deficit, sluggish export growth, industrial, and kharif crops' production may affect the overall economic growth. It has pegged GDP growth for this year at six per cent. It also forecast a possible shortfall in revenue earnings, and mounting Government expenditure for the state and central governments.The figures in the report made disappointing news. For April-September 1997, the central fiscal deficit was Rs 13,880 crore, or 75 per cent higher than that in the same period last year. Consolidated fiscal deficit of states is set to rise from Rs 41,884.6 crore last year to Rs 45,529.6 crore in 1997-98. Central Government's public debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio is to fall to 50.5 per cent by March 1998, from 53 per cent last year. New primary capital market witnessed a slump of 83 per cent during the first half of the current fiscal. Trade deficit rose by $ 683 million to $ 2,496 million in the first-half of the current fiscal.
