A new book on black money tells you more

Anecdotes about the first Income Tax searches in the T-20 IPL cricket tournament and a letter by former Finance Minister P Chidambaram seeking information about alleged illegal accounts by Indians in Switzerland find place in a new book on black money.

The recently launched book "It's Raining Black! Chronicles of Black Money, Tax Havens and Policy Response" -- talks about policy measures framed by the government to tackle the menace of illegal funds in the country and abroad.

It also contains anecdotal incidents of action undertaken by various financial law enforcement agencies like the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Department of Revenue Intelligence as part of their mandate.

The tome has been penned by journalist and founder of web portal 'taxindiaonline', Shailendra Kumar, who by the virtue of his experience on the field, has put on record 'on-ground' development of these agencies.

One of the simple ways to generate black funds or illegal money, described in the book, is the general modus operandi of running illegal liquor trade across the borders of various Indian states.

The book tracks the topic of black money through its recent past and addresses the future challenges.

Clubbed into two parts and eight chapters, the book attempts to decode some tough lexicon used in the context of black money and topics related to tax evasion, investigation and collection of intelligence-related data.

The analysis has been divided into two broad aspects, the domestic perspective and the international arena.

It goes on at length to describe tax haven nations, a term used to describe countries who have a not-so-strict tax regime, including treaties and protocols signed by India to obtain confidential information and cooperation on this front.

A snippet in the book describes how sleuths had deployed smart gadgets to clone a series of computers.

The publication not only attempts to sum up the extent of the problem of black money generation in India, but also tries to cull out the reasons behind the generation of such a stash of funds while simultaneously exploring the role of corruption and other systemic failures that have led to the problem acquiring gigantic proportions.

Both basic and advanced information on black money is provided in the book. It deals with the legal complexities of DTAAs and domestic legislation, and also makes an objective assessment of facts and events which have influenced the campaign against black money in the past few years.

The 327-page book, priced at Rs 795 and published by LexiNexis has a foreword by the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Special Investigative Team, Justice (retd) M B Shah and Justice (retd) Arijit Pasayat respectively.