Not much money in foreign banks

Well, there is one thing that is clear from the developments in the public money saga in the public domain. There are no millions available for the citizens in the foreign banks, to be brought back by the superman Modi and then deposited into their individual accounts as promised by him in meeting after meeting during his highly successful high decibel campaign. The grapevine has it that the sums involved in the foreign accounts listed before the Supreme Court are not even an aggregate of Rs.800 crore. Half of the 627 accounts belong to non-resident Indians, so there is nothing that can be done about these.

The much publicised Preneet Kaur account is ten years old, with nothing much to write home about. Then the bulk of the names are those of real estate barons, bullion dealers and mining merchants, who shall fight their way to the maze of income tax proceedings. Now how difficult this task is can be gauged from the fact that the IT department has itself accepted that 97 per cent of its Rs.4.67 lakh crores tax arrears are ‘difficult to recover.” So, let us forget it. No millions for our accounts.