Elaborating on the five-pronged strategy, Mukherjee said India has completed negotiations on 10 new tax informationexchange agreements with Bahamas, Bermuda, British VirginIslands, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Jersey, Monaco, St Kittsand Nevis, Argentina and Marshall Islands out of 22 identifiedcountries and jurisdictions.
India has also initiated the process of negotiations with65 countries to broaden the scope of Article concerningExchange of Information to specificially allow for exchange ofbanking information and information regarding taxpayers notcovered by Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA).
"As on date, negotiations have been completed with 10existing DTAA countries for updating the Article. Agreed textshave been initialled. 13 new DTAAs have also been finalisedwhere Exchange of Information of Article is in line with theinternational standards. In short, negotiations/renegotiationsof DTAAs with 23 countries have been completed," he said.
He said DTAA and Exchange of Taxation InformationAgreement are two instrumentalities under which informationcan obtained and the government has already amended pacts with23 countries to get information from banks.
He, however, gave no time-frame by which such informationcould be available with India as a consequence of thesetreaties.
The Finance Minister said over the last 18 months, anundisclosed income of about Rs 15,000 crore has been detecteddue to focussed search operations by the Income TaxDepartment.
During the same period, Directorate of InternationalTaxation has collected taxes of Rs 34,601 crore and theDirectorate of Transfer Pricing has detected mispricing of Rs33,784 crore which has prevented shifting of an equivalentamount of money outside India, he said.
"But the problem is information, which we have obtained,has come under some conditions of secrecy. Today, if wedisclose (information about 18 accounts the government hasgot), tomorrow other countries will not give you theinformation raising an accusing finger that you do not meetinternational commitments," he said.
However, Mukherjee said "there is a way. As and when theIncome Tax Authorities will be in a position to prosecutecases against tax evaders you will come to know".
"Even I have no intention or authority of knowing thenames (of those who have stashed black money abroad). TheIncome Tax officers have statutory powers under which theyperform their duties and they are outside the purview of theadministrative control of the ministry," he said.
"Necessary provisions have been made in the proposedDirect Tax Code to create legislative framework to checkillicit outflows of funds," he said.
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