India steps up pressure on Switzerland to share info
, May 03, 2014 12:22 amNew Delhi : India has strongly objected to Switzerland's denial of information about account details of certain Indians at HSBC's Swiss bank branches, in whose cases "incriminating evidence of tax evasion" have been found here.
In a strongly-worded letter to his Swiss counterpart, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has also warned that an effective exchange of tax-related information was "extremely important" for economic co-operation between the two countries and Switzerland must honour its "rights and duties" agreed to in their bilateral Direct Tax Avoidance Convention (DTAC).
This is Chidambaram's third letter to Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer Schlumpf within four months on this matter and he again reiterated that India wouldl be constrained to raise the issue at a multilateral global forum like G20 if Switzerland continued to deny information.
"It may kindly be appreciated that the refusal to provide assistance in cases where evidence has been collected by the Indian tax authorities, for the reason that the names of the persons concerned existed in the HSBC bank data, amounts to Switzerland providing protection to taxpayers found to have evaded Indian taxes," Chidambaram wrote.
Chidambaram has objected to Switzerland's stance that India needs to demonstrate that the investigation carried out in these cases was initiated independently of the HSBC data, and was based on information already available with the Indian authorities prior to HSBC data from France.
"These are unusual pre-conditions and are intended to refuse assistance," Chidambaram wrote.
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