Govt. has taken various steps to curb tax evasion: Jaitley

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday asserted that the Centre has taken various steps in the last two and a half years to improve tax compliance and curb tax evasion.

Addressing the media about the outcome of the Income Declaration Scheme 2016 (IDS-2016), Jaitley threw light on the government's initiatives to curb tax evasion.

"Formation of a constitution to curb black money was the first thing that we intended. Adding to this were the changes made in the Benami Act completely, which was pending for years," said Jaitley.

"We decided that the non-compliant will have to pay more taxes than the compliant in order to rope in more and more for asset declaration people and tax compliance," he added.

Talking about the substantial up-gradation in the Income Declaration Scheme which has an effective rate of taxation under 45 percent, Jaitley announced a total of 64,275 disclosures made by the citizens of India, which collectively amounts to Rs. 65,250 crore.

He further marked these figures to be tentative as an additional revision is likely to take place during the final tabulation.