Income tax department warns: ‘Declare foreign assets or pay ₹10 lakh penalty’

The Income-Tax department has today launched a new campaign warning taxpayers of ₹10 lakh penalty if they fail to disclose foreign held assets or income earned from abroad in their ITR, according to a PTI report. According to the I-T department advisory, for Indian residents a foreign asset would include bank accounts, cash value insurance contract or annuity contract, financial interest in any entity or business, immovable property, custodial account, equity and debt interest, trusts in which a person is a trustee, beneficiary of settlor, accounts with singing authority, any capital asset etc., held abroad. It added that all eligible taxpayers “must mandatorily” fill the foreign asset or foreign source income schedule in their ITR even if their income is “below the taxable limit” or the asset abroad was “acquired from disclosed sources”, the report said. “Failure to disclose foreign asset/income in the ITR can attract a penalty of ₹10 lakh under the Black Money and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015,” the advisory added.