It could therefore be seen, that the scheme of the Black Money Act is to provide stringent measures for curbing the menace of black money. Various offences have been defined and stringent punishments have also been provided. However, the scheme of the Black Money Act also provided one-time opportunity to make a declaration in respect of any undisclosed asset located outside India and acquired from income chargeable to tax under the Income-tax Act. Section 59 of the Black Money Act provided that such a declaration was to be made on or after the date of commencement of the Black Money Act, but on or before a date notified by the Central Government in the Official Gazette. The date so notified for making a declaration is September 30, 2015 whereas, the date for payment of tax and penalty was notified to be December 31, 2015. As such, an anomalous situation was arising if the date under sub-section (3) of section 1 of the Black Money Act was to be retained as April 1, 2016, then the period for making a declaration would have been lapsed by September 30, 2015 and the date for payment of tax and penalty would have also been lapsed by December 31, 2015. However, in view of the date originally prescribed by sub-section (3) of section 1 of the Black Money Act, such a declaration could have been made only after April 1, 2016. Therefore, in order to give the benefit to the assessee(s) and to remove the anomalies the date July 1, 2015 has been substituted in sub-section (3) of section 1 of the Black Money Act, in place of April 1, 2016. This is done, so as to enable the assessee desiring to take benefit of section 59 of the Black Money Act. By doing so, the assessees, who desired to take the benefit of one-time opportunity, could have made declaration prior to September 30, 2015 and paid the tax and penalty prior to December 31, 2015.
