By IANS,
New Delhi : Sharing the opposition’s concern over black money stashed in tax havens abroad, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday said the government’s views on the issue were similar to those of the opposition and everything would be done to bring back the money to India to address poverty.
“We are one with the opposition that everything should be done to bring back black money stashed abroad to India,” Manmohan Singh told the Lok Sabha while replying to the debate on the motion of thanks on the president’s address.
“We all want to clean up our system of this menace. We all know black money accumulation is not a product of last three or four years, but has taken place over a very long period,” he said.
He asked all political parties to make “constructive suggestions” that the government would consider.
He said the government would “sit together” with all political parties to “seek their help and see how the black money problem can be dealt with”.
The prime minister said the government had in the past too made attempts to deal with the illegal money issue and gave the 1991 economic reforms and taxation reforms in the subsequent years as one of the efforts to prevent arbitrary trade practices and accumulation of black money.
“This is not an issue to divide the house. All parties sit to figure out how to move ahead on the issue,” he said.
The government had informed the Supreme Court earlier this month that it will reveal the names of all the people who have stashed away their black money in foreign banks abroad after it registers cases against them.
The government’s assurance to the apex court came on petition by eminent jurist Ram Jethmalani seeking a direction to the government to take steps for bringing back the money stashed away in foreign banks.
The court earlier asked the central government to inform the whereabouts of the country’s top tax evader Hasan Ali, who is alleged to have stashed away a huge amount of money in foreign banks.