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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Work on slush cash data by Jayanta Roy Chowdhury

Work on slush cash data by Jayanta Roy Chowdhury

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published Published on Jan 21, 2011   modified Modified on Jan 21, 2011

The Centre has signed deals or is in talks with 78 countries besides Switzerland to amend double taxation avoidance treaties to facilitate information-sharing on slush funds held by Indians abroad.

These countries include Mauritius, Brazil, Canada, Italy, the UK, the US, the UAE and the Channel Islands.

The Swiss parliament is set to ratify the tax treaty with changes which will allow India to gain access to information on black money held by Indians in the tax haven’s banks, officials in Delhi said.

However, full information will be shared only in specific cases and not for all bank accounts, according to a model tax convention framed by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development.

“The rules are this information can be used to collect taxes but cannot be given out publicly. That is why the Government of India has not as yet given out any details of black money information it has or may receive,” an official said.

“The exchange of information will be applicable to data that relates to any financial year beginning on or after January 1, 2011, as soon as the protocol has been given effect,” the official said.

But he added that did not mean India would have any unrestricted access to bank accounts or data and “fishing expeditions against individuals or corporates without substantive proof of tax evasion will not be allowed by the Swiss or other authorities”.

So strict are the application of these rules, the official claimed, that in a case which unfolded two years ago, while taxes could be collected from individuals who had parked illegal funds in Germany, Parliament could not be informed about it.

Luxembourg, one of the main centres where Indians were suspected to have parked black money, has sometime back signed a similar deal with India to amend an agreement in line with OECD standards for tax transparency.

However, since India does not have such tax treaties with South American tax havens, loopholes still remain where Indians park black funds.

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is believed to have made a strong pitch at meetings of G20 finance ministers, asking for more transparent rules on tax havens where untaxed wealth is often stashed away.

The BJP had in recent years made an issue of India not being able to take advantage of OECD norms that could allow it to tap wealth spirited away by tax dodgers.

However, the officials said the government had been acting quietly on this front. But the government could not reveal too much in the past as it needed to have treaties with several countries in hand before speaking out, they added.

A 2006 report of a banking association claimed Indians were among the biggest depositors of black money in banks located in Switzerland. According to a study carried out three years ago by Global Financial Integrity, $27.3 billion in black money was sucked out of India every year.

Revenue officials said new checks being contemplated could verify from where the money came from, without scaring off real investments.

Mauritius ranks first among all countries in FDI inflows to India with cumulative investments amounting to $34 billions or 44 per cent of total inflows.

The government had in the past also tried to get black money back through amnesty schemes. The last such scheme was attempted by P. Chidambaram.

He had announced a voluntary disclosure of income scheme in the budget of 1997. The scheme, operational between June and December 1997, had drawn only $2 billion.

The Telegraph, 21 January, 2011, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110121/jsp/nation/story_13473561.jsp


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