Government will observe anti-black money day on Nov 8, says Arun Jaitley

The Centre today announced it will be observing November 8, 2017 as Anti-Black Money Day. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said top ministers and leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party will travel across the country to inform citizens about the measures the government has been taking in the past three years to curb the flow of black money.

The move, comes after the Congress yesterday announced that 18 opposition political parties will be observing November 8 this year as a black day. It was last year on this day, that the Prime Minister through a televised address to the nation, announced the move to demonetise old 1000 and 500 rupee notes.

Attacking the Congress over its sustained



opposition to the demonetisation drive , Jaitely said, "Congress had adequate opportunity to be in power. I can't recollect a significant step they took to tackle black money. They'd reconciled themselves to India being a shadow economy. I can quite understand their discomfort."

When asked about Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi referring to Goods and Services Tax as "Gabbar Singh Tax", Jaitley said if the opposition got their fundamentals right, they'd be able to appreciate the reasoning behind the taxation regime.

"There is no country in the world, where the entry point tax is 5%. The lowest in the world otherwise is 10%", added the Union Finance Minister.