Jakarta/New Delhi: In a big boost in the fight against blackmoney, four overseas jurisdictions, where Indians are suspected to have stashed illicit funds, on Thursday agreed to do away with banking secrecy ways by allowing automatic tax information exchange.
Besides Liechtenstein, Isle of Man, British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands — jurisdictions that have come under the scanner of tax investigators — have joined the global convention formulated by the Paris-based advisory group OECD.
“Liechtenstein and San Marino became the 62nd and 63rd signatories of the multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters.
“Another important development is the deposit by the United Kingdom of declarations extending the territorial scope of the convention to cover the following jurisdictions: Isle of Man (Crown Dependency) and Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, and Turks & Caicos (Overseas Territories),” OECD said in a statement.
The announcement came on the first day of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) two-day meeting of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes in Jakarta.
A senior finance ministry official in New Delhi said the latest development is a “boost to India’s efforts to combat blackmoney instances overseas. These four jurisdictions are of special importance with respect to India as a number of investigations are focused on investments and transactions involving their economic channels.
“With the latest move, the exchange of information in tax evasion cases, involving overseas jurisdictions, would become faster and smoother,” the official said.
India has received much fillip in its crackdown on unaccounted money especially with Switzerland joining the OECD convention in October.
