Tax havens join India’s crusade

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.