ISSUE
Friday, August 22, 2025
Volume 16 . Issue 73
New Delhi: The Indian government has already started recovering penalties from at least 17 of the 18 individuals accused of collectively stashing about Rs 39.66 crore during 2002-04 in a bank in Liechtenstein to evade taxes, reports said.
Armed with the list of names of 18 businessmen from Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai and their kin, the Income Tax Department had launched the crackdown by the end of March and early May.
Total tax penalty from these individuals, who deposited funds in the LGT Bank of European tax haven Liechtenstein, have been estimated to be Rs 24.27 crore.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) too are set to probe whether the illicit funds were part of money laundering scams, or used to fund terrorist or criminal activities, or activities against national security.
The list, that first surfaced in 2008 when a former LGT employee gave details of 1,400 account holders to German tax authorities, who launched a probe to find 26 Indian names, was then shared with Indian authorities.
Of the 26, five were non-resident Indians and were out of the I-T Department’s jurisdiction and the three could not be prosecuted for unknown reasons, media reports said. The current list of 18 offenders were then used by Indian agencies to probe and recover taxes.
Even though the Opposition parties like the BJP and the Left have been demanding that the names be disclosed, the Indian government has argued that the list cannot be made public as it would violate a confidentiality clause signed with Germany.
New Delhi: The Indian government has already started recovering penalties from at least 17 of the 18 individuals accused of collectively stashing about Rs 39.66 crore during 2002-04 in a bank in Liechtenstein to evade taxes, reports said. Armed with the list of names of 18 businessmen from...
New Delhi: The Indian government has already started recovering penalties from at least 17 of the 18 individuals accused of collectively stashing about Rs 39.66 crore during 2002-04 in a bank in Liechtenstein to evade taxes, reports said.
Armed with the list of names of 18 businessmen from Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai and their kin, the Income Tax Department had launched the crackdown by the end of March and early May.
Total tax penalty from these individuals, who deposited funds in the LGT Bank of European tax haven Liechtenstein, have been estimated to be Rs 24.27 crore.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) too are set to probe whether the illicit funds were part of money laundering scams, or used to fund terrorist or criminal activities, or activities against national security.
The list, that first surfaced in 2008 when a former LGT employee gave details of 1,400 account holders to German tax authorities, who launched a probe to find 26 Indian names, was then shared with Indian authorities.
Of the 26, five were non-resident Indians and were out of the I-T Department’s jurisdiction and the three could not be prosecuted for unknown reasons, media reports said. The current list of 18 offenders were then used by Indian agencies to probe and recover taxes.
Even though the Opposition parties like the BJP and the Left have been demanding that the names be disclosed, the Indian government has argued that the list cannot be made public as it would violate a confidentiality clause signed with Germany.
Leave a Comment