Gold Silver Reports – Link Aadhaar to Catch Benami Properties – In several addresses to the nation (called Mann Ki Baat), Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeated his plans to root out black money from the system by cracking down on benami properties.
Why benami properties? This is because a major part of black money in India is held in the for m of benami properties (gold and cash are other forms).Demonetisation, declared on November 8, 2016, was the fight against black money held in the form of cash. Close to its anniversary, some harsh measures are expected on `benami properties’ as well.
Hope this `tough action’ won’t be in the form of another legislation.This is because we pass numerous legislations, but fail miserably in implementing most of them. For example, the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, passed in 1988 was getting dust without any action. Though the present government added more teeth to it by amending it recently (Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amended Act, 2016), activities to catch benami properties are still going on slowly.
For example, this amended Act came into existence from November 1, 2016. However, action taken is restricted to few immovable properties and bank deposits after demonetisation (bank deposits are also treated as property under this Act).
Finding the real beneficiary of benami properties is a herculean task and that is the main reason for its slow implementation. To speed up this information gathering, the government should come out with cash reward upto `1 crore for `secret informers’ (those who give tips to tax agencies).
But the success rate will be less because people will be scared that some rogue employees from these agencies will leak the information of the informer. For example, similar rules in income tax and customs rules are not fetching big information.
Since most people already have an Aadhaar number, asking them to link it to their property documents is a better option. The main advantage of this strategy is that the tax authorities will get details about `legal owners’ (owner as per property documents) immediately . Several historical property deals might have happened in fictitious names and they will get stuck immediately.
Several black money hoarders also used to register properties in other’s name (e.g. in the name of servants, some family members who are poor, etc) after getting their signatures (these poor people have no idea what these signatures are meant for).
In these cases, the original property documents are kept by the `original owners’ and in most cases, they also keep a power of attorney signed by `legal owners’.
Once the Aadhaar linkage happens, tax authorities can approach the `legal owners’ and it can be treated as benami property if the `legal owners are unaware or denies knowledge of the ownership’.
Even if the `legal owner’ takes onus and claims that it is his property, he needs to show the `source of income’ for buying that property (e.g. will be difficult for a house maid to show source for property worth crores).
I am sure the Aadhaar opponents (some genuine due to fear about losing their data or others vested interests want to continue with their illegal activities) may come out against this also. Will this amount to harassing the `genuine tax payers’ as the Aadhaar opponents will put it?
No, because there are several provisions in the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amended Act, 2016 to protect them. For example, the usual transactions like buying property in the name of spouse, kids, parents, joint names with siblings, etc is already exempt in the Act. However, they need to show the source of money used for such purchase.
Will this amount to some discomfort to `genuine tax payers’?
Yes, because they may have to visit the registrar’s office for updating their Aadhaar number. However, most of them will support this move because it will result in unearthing huge black money . Only thing, since this process will be time consuming (some people may be working in cities, but may have properties in villages), government should give enough time to property owners for doing this. – Neal Bhai Reports
