Coordination centre to curb illicit financial flow to come up in S. Asia

The government is planning to set up a South Asian Regional Intelligence Coordination centre to curb "illicit" financial flow, and once it is operational, it will allow South Asian countries to connect with other countries.

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said this on Monday, while speaking at a conference on 'Networking the Networks' here.

According to reports, this platform will initially comprise the founding members - Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, besides India - and later, it would be opened to inclusion of other countries or international organisation as decided by the founding members, based on shared concerns.

Stating that seven countries, including India, will collectively set up the centre, Adhia said the roadmap for phasing out corporate tax exemption would be rolled out by December.

Highlighting that evasion of taxes and parking assets outside are major concerns for the economy, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: "No organisation will benefit from illicit financial flow in any form. Besides, profiteering from illicit financial flow is a criminal offence."

He said the government is trying to make laws simpler, but when global money is involved, it becomes complicated.

The three-day conference will discuss scope for regional cooperation to effectively deal with illicit financial flows, mainly from tax frauds and human trafficking. The conference will try to identify best practices of existing international organisations for cooperation on illicit financial flows.