By IANS,
New Delhi: India and Switzerland will amend their bilateral tax treaty to enable New Delhi access information on Indians holding secret bank accounts in the European tax haven, parliament was told Tuesday.
India and Switzerland signed a deal last year to amend the existing Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA). “Upon entry into force, the amended DTAA will enable India to get banking information in specific cases for a period beginning April 1, 2011 and thereafter,” Minister of State for Finance S.S. Palanimanickam said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
India has been struggling to bring back an estimated $462 billion to $1.4 trillion black money stashed in tax havens abroad, including Switzerland.
Palanimanickam said the amendment would enable the two countries to specifically share banking information as well as information which is not in domestic interests of the respective countries.
“The amending protocol contains a provision that the requesting state has to provide the name of the person(s) under examination or investigation and, if available, other particulars facilitating that person’s identification such as address, date of birth, marital status, tax identification number,” he said.
“Requesting state also has to provide the name and, if available, address of any person believed to be in possession of the requested information,” he added.