An 80-year-old woman who had declared a monthly income of around Rs 14,000 is reported to have black money amounting to the tune of around Rs 196 crore in her Swiss bank account.
The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal(ITAT) in Mumbai has recently has ordered the woman to pay a penalty along with the tax.
As per the reports, Renu Tharani’s alleged account is in HSBC Geneva. The Swiss Bank holds the sole discretionary beneficiary of the bank named Tharani Family Trust. It was opened in July 2004 under the name of Cayman Islands-based GW Investment which transferred the fund to the family trust as an administrator.
Renu Tharani did not inform the income tax returns filed in the year 2005-06. The case reopened on 31st October 2014. Tharani had also filed an affidavit stating that she had no bank account in Geneva nor was he a shareholder in the GW Investment Bank. She claimed to be a migrant and said she could not be taxed.
In 2005–06 earnings tax return, Tharani had declared her annual earnings of Rs 1.7 lakh. She gave an address in Bengaluru and described herself as an Indian taxpayer. According to the ITAT Bench, it may have been that she was in her first year of non-residential status. The bench could not figure out where did she collected 200 crore rupees in her bank account in such a short period. The bench also said that she isn’t even a public figure or runs a charity that this amount would have been given to her trust.
The HSBC account information was received by several governments, including India, the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia, after a whistle-blower, an employee of HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA, Geneva, walked out with information on thousands of accounts in 2006, involving wealth hidden from taxmen.
