Tax Crimes under the Money Laundering Law

The government is considering placing tax crimes at the sama level as money laundering offences that have severe criminal and financial implications. Income-tax offences could come under its anti-money laundering law, which would make prosecution, rigorous imprisonment, fines and shifting onus on the accused to prove he is not guilty a lot more easier. The offences will include concealment of income, failure to deposit tax deducted at source and false evidence.

Recommendations could be placed before Parliament and changes could be made to the Prevention of Money Laundering (Amendment) Bill, 2011.

These changes are in accordance with a global plan drawn up by the Finance Action Task force, an inter-governmental body to combat money laundering and terror financing, of which India is a member.Many countries have incorporated these offences in their money laundering laws even though the FATF adopted them as part of new standards in February this year.

If the changes take place, the trial in these cases will be faster as offences under PMLA are tried in special courts and the onus to prove innocence lies on the accused.

Amendments to the Finance Bill

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has announced that the General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) will be applied from 2013-14 onwards, deferring its application by a year. He also said  that the onus of proof will lie with the tax authorities and that the proposed retrospective amendment of income tax laws will not override DTAAs with 82 countries. He also proposed an STT of 0.2% on the sale of unlisted securities. and that the capital gains tax on private equity will be halved to 10 per cent.

Reduced capital flows prompted the RBI to raise the interest rates banks can offer non-resident Indians to encourage them to bring in dollars. The Sensex ended below the 17,000 mark for the first time since January 24, 2012, closing at 16,831 -down 320 points.

The mass disparagement evoked scepticism and annoyance among officials of the finance ministry.

Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill, 2012

A bill on media regulation was proposed by  Meenakshi Natarajan, a Lok Sabha MP called the "Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill, 2012",. It aims at establishing a regulatory authority with powers to impose a ban or suspend coverage of an event or an incident that may pose a threat to national security from foreign or internal sources. However, she was not present in the Lok Sabha and so the Bill was not introduced.

There has been opposition to the bill on the ground that the press should be accorded freedom and there should be no attempt to gag the media.

Though it will be appropriate to regulate the media, the regulation must not be absolute. No right can be absolute, every right is subject to reasonable restrictions in the public interest. Any action or restriction on action of the media shouldn’t adversely affect the security of the state, public order, morality, etc.