SIT Recommends making Tax Evasion a Crime

In Chapter III of Second SIT report, the SIT has recommended as under:

“Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on money laundering recommends ‘tax crimes’ to be made a predicate offence so that action can be taken under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. There are more than 25 countries in the world which have made ‘tax crimes’ as a predicate offence. The Government needs to seriously examine the issue and take steps to make ‘tax crimes’ as a predicate offence. To prevent any hardship to salaried or small tax payer, a high threshold of say, more than ₹ 50 lakh of tax evasion could be considered as being a predicate offence”.

This was stated by Shri Jayant Sinha, Minister of State in Ministry of Finance in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.