Govt negotiating tax information exchange with seven counties

In a move to bring back the black money stashed abroad, the Indian government is negotiating with seven countries to sign Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEA).

“The Indian government is very serious about the black money issue. We are negotiating with seven countries for signing TIEA at present to unearth black money,” Sudhir Chandra, chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes said on Wednesday here.

However, Chandra did not take the names of the countries, the government is in talks with.

India has already signed the agreement with four jurisdictions -- the British Virgin Islands, Isle of Man, the Bahamas and Barmuda.

The government has marked 22 countries with which it has plans to sign such deal, he said.

Speaking on the issuing refunds to the tax payers, he said the government would finish the process of issuing the refunds for the assessment year 2010-11 by April 20 this year.

“We have issued 4.5 lakh refunds between April 1 to April 10. The rest of the refunds for assessment year 2010-11 will be issued by April 20 this year,” Chandra said. He also said that government was making efforts to speed up the process of issuing refunds.

“We are trying to prepone the issue of refunds which will save interest. Moreover, this is way to encourage the tax payers,” he said.

The Income Tax department has refunded Rs 72,000 crore to tax payers in the fiscal year 2009-10 against Rs 57,000 in the previous financial year.

Meanwhile, the IT department has seized about Rs 5.32 crore unaccountable money ahead of assembly election in the West Bengal..

“We have seized about Rs 5.32 crore unaccountable money in this electin season till now. We will continue this work of keeping tab on the movement of cash before the elerction,” T B C Rozaro, director general, Income Tax (Investigations) (East) said.

However, IT department has seized about Rs 40 lakh in Tamil Nadu which is highest among the states which are going for poll, an IT official said.

Election commission had earlier asked to restrict the movement of unaccountable cash in all these poll-bound states.

“No one will say that the money is for election use. Whenever there is a cash movement and person concerned has no satisfactory explanation we are seizing the money,” Rozaro noted.