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0 pointssudhirj8y ago0 comments

All the cash coming back was one thing, now everyone has to file their income tax returns, which is when it gets interesting. There’s going to be a lot of people filing tax returns for the first time, and a lot of explaining to do.

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6 comments · 2 top-level

crdoconnor8y ago· 4 in thread

Black money largely isn't held as large stacks of suspicious looking cash - that's a Bollywood trope.

It's invested domestically in real estate, art, gold, or other assets, or held offshore, either in the form of freely convertible currency or other assets, which is why 98.96% of the cash was returned.

I strongly doubt a significant number of criminals openly advertised their possession of black money by returning it themselves.

Modi's ploy was an unmitigated failure.

sudhirjOP8y ago

For real estate, art, gold, assets and overseas moves, the question still remains as to what the sellers then did with the cash. The buyers might have gotten away, but the sellers are still caught with bags of that need to be laundered.

There was a huge collateral cost, I don't think anyone can deny that, but whether it was worth is still too early to call.

mattnewton8y ago

The sellers reported they sold real estate, art and gold before the cutoff, no? How would the government know they sold it illicitly if it was cash? How would some of these art, gold and real estates salespeople know for that matter?

xapata8y ago

If criminals didn't turn in the cash, then it evaporated, which is just as good. No?

crdoconnor8y ago

No. Just 1% of the cash evaporated, as opposed to 33% as Modi predicted, and majority of that was probably just due to loss or unlucky circumstance.

For such a disruptive event, that's pathetic.

The only winner was the banking system, who saw one of their major competitors (cash), hobbled. Modi now seems to be saying that this was the point all along.

2 more replies

wtmt8y ago

Some would point that a lot of Jan Dhan accounts were flush with much smaller amounts. So any large sums of cash held by someone found a way to get into the system and back out again within a few months.

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