Indians Rush Frantically to Launder Their ‘Black Money’

For decades, Indians have stuffed their mattresses with 500- and 1,000-rupee notes, the most widely circulated bills, worth the equivalent of a few dollars.

But Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to tax that money. His strategy was to force Indians to reveal what they had been hoarding. How? He banned the bills and told everyone that they had to exchange them for new ones.

.. Because more affluent Indians are allowed to exchange only 250,000 rupees, or about $3,700, without proof that they paid taxes, some are handing wads of cash to poor people, paying them a fee to hold the money in their accounts and return it later.

.. About a third of all business in India is carried out using black money. Whole industries, like real estate, trading, luxury retailing and wedding services, have been fueled by black money for decades.

.. In a country where government oversight is weak, it has been easy to transact business in cash and to avoid taxes

.. Cash had become so ingrained in the real estate industry that it was difficult to make a deal without paying some portion under the table. When Ramanan Laxminarayan, a Princeton University senior research scholar, tried to buy an apartment in the New Delhi area, he was told that he would have to provide 60 percent of the purchase price, about $420,000, in cash to close the deal.

.. India’s notoriously lavish weddings have taken a big hit. Families that had stashed large amounts of black money to spend in the coming wedding season

.. Several marriages planned for five-star hotels have been downscaled

 

Confirmed: Donald Trump Says He Will Take $1 Salary as President

President-elect Donald Trump stood by his promise to reject the presidential salary, during an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes.

“The answer is no,” he said, when asked about his campaign trail promise by CBS interviewer Lesley Stahl. “I think I have to take by law one dollar so I’ll take one dollar a year.”

He admitted that he didn’t even know what the salary was, but when he was told it was $400,000 salary he declined it.

“I’m not taking it,” he said.

He added that he would not be taking too many vacations either.

Mark Burnett, ‘Apprentice’ Producer, Denounces Trump

A person familiar with Mr. Trump’s “Apprentice” contract, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe confidential terms, said M.G.M. would have to obtain Mr. Trump’s permission before releasing unaired footage of him from the show, part of a clause granting Mr. Trump control over the use of his name and likeness.

.. Entertainment lawyers interviewed this week wondered if Mr. Trump would have much of a legal case if footage were to be released. The “name and likeness” clause is typically invoked if a celebrity’s image is used for profit — not as documentary evidence in a presidential campaign.

.. Refusing to release footage “could mean that there are contractual restrictions,” said Jerry Glover, a lawyer in Chicago who has worked on reality-television disputes.

“It could also mean Burnett doesn’t want to get on Donald Trump’s bad side,” Mr. Glover added.

That is the suspicion of people like Ms. Allred, who marched outside M.G.M. headquarters and declared that Mr. Burnett had “a civic duty” to open his video vault.

.. There could also be reputational costs: An emergence of damning footage might blemish the valuable “Apprentice” brand. And the reality-television industry, with its susceptibility to spoilers and demands for authenticity, is particularly sensitive to issues of discretion and trust.

.. But none would speak publicly, citing nondisclosure agreements with steep financial penalties.

.. There are thousands of hours of footage from “The Apprentice,” most likely stored in hundreds of boxes. Finding scenes with Mr. Trump — let alone footage of some kind of damning utterance — would be no small task.

.. “Even if it turns out that Burnett’s sitting on Trump video that the public really ought to see, if he keeps on cranking out monster hits, this town won’t shun him,”