With reference to Mukesh Butani's article, "Replicating the success of IDS, 2016" (October 12), while there is a lot of patting on the back over the success of the Income Declaration Scheme, 2016, its figures when compared to the Voluntary Disclosure Scheme (VDS), 1997, tell a different story.
The average amount of black income declaration is reported as Rs 1 crore under IDS, 2016. How significant is this amount, considering that there is some news almost daily about people getting caught with hundreds of crores? Is there a possibility that the big fish have not declared at all or have declared a minuscule part of their black income?
Under VDS, 1997, the reported figure of disclosures was a little under Rs 33,000 crore. Today the black money figure computed at 60 per cent of gross domestic product is a staggering Rs 90 lakh crore. The conclusion: Black money income declared under IDS, 2016, is a mere 0.7 per cent of the generated black income. In comparison, declarations under VDS, 1997, roughly accounted for five per cent of the black money generated that year.
Some more homework needs to be done before patting on the back continues.
Angelo Extross, Pune
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