Benami and Black Money Act

History: Prior to introduction of Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act in 1988, the benami transactions were recognised as a specie of legal transactions pertaining to immovable properties. The nature of a benami transaction has been described by the Judicial Committee of Privy Council in Gurnarayan v Shoelal Singh[1], thus – The

Introduction In order to tackle the issues arising from undisclosed foreign income and assets, Central Government has enacted special Act ‘Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015’ (for brevity ‘BMA’) with effective from 01.07.2015. Charge of Tax: Section 3 of BMA states that a

The Honourable High Court of Delhi recently in the case of Smt Sunita Gupta v Union of India has an occasion to examine the validity of re-initiation of proceedings by Initiating Officer (IO) under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988 (Benami Act). The Honourable High Court after considering

The recent judgment of the Honourable Appellate Tribunal[1] of New Delhi in the case of 28 appellants who are the professors of a college, who has received salary advances in cash and the initiating officer (IO) treating such salary advances in cash are benami transactions under the Prohibition of Benami

This law applies only to Resident and Ordinarily resident of India (ROR). The objective of the law is to bring back into India, the money held abroad by Indian residents. It is applicable from 01-07-2015. BML applies only to foreign sourced income and assets which are liable to Indian Tax

Background:  The Finance Minister, in his budget speech, while acknowledging the limitations under the existing law, had conveyed the considered decision of the Government to enact a comprehensive new law on black money to specifically deal with black money stashed away abroad. He also promised to introduce the new Bill