Treaties to track black money

India has completed negotiation with 53 countries, says Pranab

“We have concluded negotiations with several countries to amend our existing Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAAs). Once these become operational our effort to get information about unaccounted money will get a boost,” Mukherjee told a select group of journalists here.

Giving an update on steps being taken by the government to tackle the menace of black money, Mukhjerjee said the country had completed negotiation with 53 countries including Switzerland for modifying DTAA to seek banking information on “prospective” cases.

“We expect operation of our revised DTAA with Switzerland in few months time. Once it is in operation we will be in a position to get banking related information in specific cases,” the minister said.

Finance Ministry officials said even sharing of banking information by Swiss banks in prospective cases would “immensely” help in tracking “probable” unaccounted money. The process of ratification of India’s new DTAA with Switzerland is in the final stage, with both Houses of Swiss Parliament approving the new agreement. Other formalities like approval by concerned local governing bodies having jurisdiction over various Swiss banks are yet to be over.

Pointing out that the country is holding negotiations with another group of 29 countries to suitably amending the DTAA, Mukherjee said the government was focusing on Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) with such countries, having no tax or low tax provisions.

Senior officials said to enlarge the scope of DTAAs provisions for assistance in tax collection abroad had been included in some of the recently concluded DTAAs.

“A provision regarding assistance in tax examination abroad is included in all the negotiated TIEAs, which will enable us to send our officers abroad for tax examination. We are negotiating inclusion of this clause in the existing and new DTAAs also,” an official said.

The official indicated that information regarding details of assets and payments received by Indian citizens in several countries had started flowing in. “These are under various stages of processing and investigation,” the official said adding the amended DTAAs were helping the tax authorities to detect probable tax evasion.“In large number of specific cases (relating to probable tax evasion) information have been obtained under the DTAAs. These are being looked into,” he said.

Asked about SC’s decision to appoint a Special Investigation Team to probe into black money-related matters Mukherjee refused to comment. “We have taken note of the court’s observation. The Constitution has prescribed the functions of legislature, executive and judiciary. We will work within those parameters,” he said.