India gets easy access to secret Swiss a/cs

India has got a step closer to identifying taxpayers with secret accounts in Switzerland. Under an agreement signed between India and Switzerland on April 20, the latter has agreed to relax the condition for providing information on people who have stashed undeclared money in that country.

The pact allows exchange of information even with limited details about the person under scrutiny. This is a shift from the existing structure where India has to provide the name of the person and the name of the foreign holder of the information while requesting for information.

The government said this was a restrictive provision and not in line with the international standards.

 

According to the new agreement, India will have to indicate the name and address of any person who is expected to have the required information under Article 26 of their Double Taxation Avoidance agreement (DTAA).

The government said the agreement, signed after receiving approval of the Cabinet in March 23, would be beneficial to India and was in line with international standards. It will come into effect retrospectively from April 1, 2011, the day amending protocol to the treaty was signed.

India had inked the pact with Switzerland to revise bilateral taxation treaty in August 2010. The revised treaty was approved by Swiss Parliament on June 17 last year. The revised DTAA allowed India to obtain banking information from Switzerland in specific cases from April 1, 2011.