G20 deal on sharing bank data to help India battle black money

In a major step that will aid India track and recover black money stashed abroad, G20 finance ministers Sunday agreed on allowing automatic sharing of all bank information with tax authorities at the end of each year, starting 2017.

"We endorse the finalised global Common Reporting Standard for automatic exchange of tax information on a reciprocal basis which will provide a step-change in our ability to tackle and deter cross-border tax evasion," a communique of the G20 finance ministers and central bankers' meeting here said.

"We will begin exchanging information automatically between each other and with other countries by 2017 or end-2018," the statement added.

The deal will not only allow the countries to extract bank details for future, but they can also avail account balance information of the past five to six years upon request, an official source said at the end of the two-day summit.

The agreement will help India, and other nations battling the black money scourge, secure information that several countries were earlier denying, citing local secrecy laws.

In May, the newly-installed NDA government set up a special investigative team to probe illicit wealth stowed abroad.

The Supreme Court last month said the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that was set up by it in 2011 to probe the unaccounted money stashed away in tax havens and foreign banks has made some progress in that direction.