475 Indians exposed in Bahamas Leaks

LAHORE - The Bahamas Leaks have revealed 475 India-related files linked to corporate personalities across sectors such as mines and metals, electronics, real estate, media and entertainment.

The Indian Express writes: “Five months after the Panama Papers, the biggest-ever leak of offshore entities registered by Panama-headquartered law firm Mossack Fonseca, comes the Bahamas Leaks, which reveals incorporation details of more than 175,000 companies, trusts and foundations registered in the Bahamas, the Caribbean tax haven.”

Anil Agarwal of the Vedanta Group, Kabir Mulchandani of the erstwhile Baron Group who had made it big in the domestic consumer electronics sector with Akai, Aiwa and Hitachi tie-ups in the 1990s, Fashion TV India promoter Rajan Madhu and Aman Gupta, chairman and chief executive of premium Finnish water brand Veen Waters, are some of the prominent personalities linked to companies in the Bahamas Leaks investigated by The Indian Express.

Some names that were exposed in the Panama Papers investigation have come up in the Bahamas Leaks as well. The two sets of data intersect at several points, uncovering hidden layers of offshore secrecy, The Indian Express noted.

According to the newspaper, the Bahamas Leaks surfaced days before the September 30 deadline of the government’s much-publicised Income Disclosure Scheme (IDS). The IDS allows individuals and corporations to declare undisclosed income and come clean by paying 45 percent tax as penalty. Within hours of the Panama Papers investigation by The Indian Express, the government had deployed a multi-disciplinary taskforce to probe the revelations. Since then, almost 100 requests for information have been sent to 12 offshore jurisdictions.

“In all, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has put 297 Indians covered by the Panama Papers investigation under the scanner. The government may choose to include the details revealed by the Bahamas Leaks under the ongoing ambitious tax probe,” the publication writes.