Reports peg black money at $3.6bn to $490bn

PUT SIMPLY: THERE IS A LOT OF BLACK MONEY, BUT IT ISN’T REALLY POSSIBLE TO MEASURE IT PRECISELY

NEWDELHI: The amount of black money stashed abroad could be anywhere between $3.6 billion to $490 billion, three government reports stated, giving such a wide range that the government concluded it was not possible to measure the amount precisely.

The reports also said the black money estimates could well be the tip of the proverbial iceberg because the larger part of the unaccounted wealth is held within the country. The reports, submitted to the Union finance ministry in July and August 2014, are the latest estimates of black money and are believed to have provided critical inputs to the Narendra Modi government before it took the decision to invalidate all old high value currency notes on November 8, 2016.

The previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government asked three institutions, the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), and the National Institute of Financial Management (NIFM), to conduct studies to “assess unaccounted income both inside and outside the country”.

With the three reporting wide variations, the government concluded that “the unaccounted income and wealth inside and outside the country do not appear amenable to credible estimation in the context of India.”

Or put simply: there is a lot of black money, but it isn’t really possible to measure it accurately.

A government note added: “It does not appear feasible to compare the estimates of unaccounted income and wealth outside the country, arrived at by these institutes through different methods, and different time periods taken by them leading to estimates at considerable variance.”