After black umbrellas, it was black shawls that Trinamool Congress members used in Lok Sabha to rake up the issue of black money. It looks that the search for elusive black money for Bharatiya Janta Party is not going to be an easy one. Lal Krishna Advani made an issue of it in the 2009 campaign and Narendra Modi repeatedly raised the matter in the current campaign. Indeed Home Minister Rajnath Singh promised that black money would be brought back “in 150 days”. It is, therefore, natural that the new government should focus early on this issue. The fact is that the markets are, at the moment, riding high enough for the government to look at Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) in the eye and tell them the era of easy anonymity is over. If the government is serious about black money, then it must not stop at only on SIT meant to “bring back” black money. After all, as a White Paper released by the previous government persuasively argued, much black money has already been brought back into the Indian economy. The real aim must be to close loopholes and end round-tripping. And, in order to do that, financial reform is required. The need is to ensure that FIIs are held to the same know-your-customer requirements that they would be in mature markets. As expressed in repeated G20 resolutions, and in a series of aggressive actions by the United States and the European Union, the mood of the world is to close such tax loopholes, and to end the era of tax havens, India must do its bit. The United Progressive Alliance Government twice, out of fear that foreign investors would sell their holdings in the Indian stock markets, ducked out of properly regulating P-notes in 2007 and in 2012. P-notes are intended precisely to anonymise transactions in Indian securities and, thus, will inevitably attract those who wish anonymity to confuse the taxman – and not just business rivals. In this direction constituting of an SIT is a good beginning, but it needs to be followed through.
