Swiss Black Money - Much Ado About Nothing

How shrill was the hue and cry about black money stowed away in Switzerland! Estimates ran to the tune of several tens of thousands of crores in the far away tax haven and it was prophesied that confiscation of the money will put an end to all of our economic woes.

Not any more..

Switzerland has publicized the amount of money illegally stashed away in the Alpine republic. And the amount does not seem to be staggering, by any scale we may care to apply - a mere 14,000 crore rupees!

Suppose for now, that the government succeeded in bringing all the depositors to account and forced them to pay taxes for the till now hidden wealth (government can only make them pay taxes, and cannot confiscate all of it). The highest tax rate in the country is 30%. The maximum that can be obtained is thus Rs. 4,200 crores.

This is paltry sum, as far as the needs of a big nation like India is concerned.

Remember, during the last Deepavali, we used up fire crackers worth Rs. 4,500 crores.

So, the scramble for black money ends in a whimper.

Much ado about nothing!