<b>Vikas Vasal:</b> A revolution in the making

Information exchange agreements between governments are potent tool in crackdown on tax arbitrage

The global financial meltdown of 2008 has had severe after-effects, impacting millions of people across the world, and leading to erosion of household wealth, job losses, challenges faced by sovereign nations in meeting their debt obligations, and so on. There is however one positive outcome as well: It brought the issue of “tax transparency” to the forefront. Governments across the globe came under pressure to support, through various social welfare measures, those of their people who were hit by the downturn. Therefore, to augment their revenues, governments were forced to evaluate existing and new sources of revenue.

In this process,