May 1 2017
While the Finance Ministry keeps on harping about the need to curb black money and prevent methods of offshore money laundering, there seems to be more trouble brewing at home. According to revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia, more than 900,000 registered firms have not been filing their annual returns and are possibly indulging in money laundering schemes.
Only 600,000 of 1.5 million firms that are registered, file their annual returns with proper audited reports while the others either give the process a miss or end up showing zero income on their balance sheets. It is almost impossible to comprehend that such a large faction is incurring losses or making no profits for years at a stretch and still doing brisk business.