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by OutOfHere 329 days ago
There is no proof of torture to get the passwords for tax purposes. Even if guilt is assumed by the court, it will be for failing to comply with the investigation, not for hiding untaxed money. I guarantee you that failing to incriminate oneself for tax purposes will result in a far smaller fine and/or imprisonment if that, than will actually evading taxes.

The article notes:

> if a person is found to be in possession or control of any books of account, or other documents and information maintained digitally, on computer systems, or stored electronically, then they must provide the designated income tax officer “reasonable technical and other assistance (including access code, by whatever name called) as may be necessary” to enable the officer to inspect “any information, electronic records and communication or data contained in or available on such computer systems”.

> “In most of the cases of search operation the taxpayers do not share the password/login credential of online forums/portals/e-mail accounts, etc.

As above, the article already notes that the taxpayers do not share the passwords.

Disclaimer: I strongly and truly believe that everyone should pay a reasonable percentage of tax on their entire income.

1 comments

We coerce and force people to relinquish passwords here in the US all the time. If you go through anything related to the border, that's run-of-the-mill. They don't even need a warrant for most of it, your fingerprint can be coerced out of you legally.
If a US citizen does not unlock the phone when entering the US, the phone can be seized while they send it to the lab to unlock it, and that's about it.

If the phone gets unlocked, the border police cannot coerce unlocking specific apps at all, although a judge can. The border police may however choose to lie about it.