Drug smugglers and third-world dictators laundering ill-gotten wealth through secretive banking systems in tax havens is an anachronistic image from crime novels. Leveraging US' remarkable success in compelling tax havens to block terrorist financing, the G20/OECD have successfully persuaded tax havens to improve tax transparency and participate in an international regime of information exchange.  All tax havens have committed to OECD standards for tax transparency and are executing Tax Information Exchange...

-The Hindu   “Heart of policy is that government believes people should pay tax somewhere” Even as Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee faces flak from corporates at home and abroad on his budget proposal to tax Vodafone-type deals through retrospective amendment, World Bank president Robert Zoellick sought to side with the government saying India wanted the company to pay tax at some place. He also reasoned that investors must give some time to the government...

One man’s fiscal problem is another man’s lifeline. Trigger happy bureaucrats and economists may love shooting down subsidies because it bloats the fiscal deficit and burdens the government but the simple fact is that in a one billion strong nation, in which nearly one in every three live below the poverty line, one needs an effective and efficient method through which privileged tax payers can support the poor. Last week, finance...

The government introduced a retrospective clarification to the Income-Tax (I-T) Act, 1961, virtually amending the law to ensure that cross-border transactions such as the $11.08 billion (around Rs55,735 crore today) Vodafone-Hutchison deal are taxable. The Supreme Court had ruled this deal as not being taxable in India. The amendment becomes crucial because a review petition by the government on this case is pending before the Supreme Court, which might now have...

-The Economic Times While there are ripples in political circles over the estimated black money stashed by Indians in tax havens abroad - as quoted by the Central Bureau of Investigation chief Amar Pratap Singh on Monday - sources say that the agency has arrived at the figure following cross-checking several sources, reports and a rough estimation.  "Most of the illegal money abroad forms part of tax evasion by individuals and companies,"...