Swiss Federal Tax Administration (FTA) said on Monday it has exchanged information on financial accounts with 75 countries including India.
In a major boost to India's fight against black money, the Indain tax authorities have received information regarding Indian citizens' financial accounts in Swiss banks.
The sharing of information is part of the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) framework between India and Switzerland.
The Swiss Federal Tax Administration (FTA) said on Monday it has exchanged information on financial accounts with 75 countries including India. The exchange took place within the framework of the global standard on AEOI.
Following the first exchange last year in which no technical problems were encountered, this year the AEOI involved a total of 75 countries.
Earlier in September, the Income Tax Department had said that the information exchange would be a significant step in the government’s fight against black money as the era of Swiss bank secrecy will finally be over.
Under the AEOI framework, Switzerland would share with Indian tax authorities information including bank account numbers, credit balance and all kinds of financial income for each Indian client of every Swiss financial institution.
Tax officials of India and Switzerland met in New Delhi over two days in late August to discuss bilateral exchange of information matters.
"In the 2-day meeting at New Delhi on 29- 30Aug, 2019, both sides discussed bilateral exchange of information matters to expedite execution of tax information-sharing requests made by India in specific cases. Enhancing collaboration in offshore tax compliance matters also discussed," the I-T department had said after the meeting.
Sharing information with 75 countries: Switzerland
With 63 of these countries, the exchange of information was reciprocal. In the case of 12 countries, Switzerland received information but did not provide any, either because those countries do not yet meet the international requirements on confidentiality and data security or because they chose not to receive data.
About 7,500 reporting financial institutions (banks, trusts, and insurers) are currently registered with the FTA. These institutions collected the data and transferred it to the FTA.
The FTA sent information on around 3.1 million financial accounts to the partner states and received information on around 2.4 million from them. The largest exchange was with Germany (in both directions) as was the case in the previous year. The FTA cannot provide any information on the amount of financial assets.
Switzerland has committed itself to adopting the global standard for the international automatic exchange of information in tax matters. The legal basis for the implementation of the AEOI in Switzerland came into force on January 1, 2017.
Identification, account and financial information are exchanged including name, address, state of residence and tax identification number as well as information concerning the reporting financial institution, account balance, and capital income.
The exchanged information allows the cantonal tax authorities to verify whether taxpayers have correctly declared their financial accounts abroad in their tax returns.
Next year, Switzerland's network of AEOI partner states will expand further to nearly 90 countries. The OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes reviews the implementation of AEOI.
(With ANI inputs)
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