Govt says info under domestic black money scheme confidential

New Delhi: Government on Thursday said information about those who declare their black money under the compliance window, ending September 30, will be kept confidential.

As regards concerns regarding confidentiality of the information filed under the scheme, it is reiterated that information contained in a valid declaration is confidential and shall not be shared, an official statement said.

"In respect of declarations filed with the Commissioner of Income-tax, Centralised Processing Centre, Bengaluru [CIT (CPC)], the declaration shall not be shared even with the jurisdictional Principal Commissioner/Commissioner and payments made under the Scheme shall not be visible to the jurisdictional officers," it said.

Form-2 and Form-4 required to be issued in such cases shall be system generated by the CPC, it said.

Similarly, it said, the declaration filed with jurisdictional Principal Commissioner or Commissioner shall not be shared with any authority within or outside the department including the jurisdictional Assessing Officer.

"Further, the payments under the Scheme shall neither be reflected in 26AS statement nor can be viewed by the Assessing Officer in the Online Tax Accounting System (OLTAS) of the Department in the interest of confidentiality," it said.

IDS scheme, launched by the government on June 1 to uncover black money, closes on September 30.

As per the IDS facility, one can pay tax under the scheme by cash in a bank and no enquiry will be made by any bank official.

Under IDS one can come clean by paying tax, penalty and cess totalling 45 percent of the undisclosed income.