Black Money: HSBC India At Centre Of Fresh Tax Evasion Claims

“The IRS has learnt that thousands of United States taxpayers with accounts at HSBC India may have failed to disclose those accounts, and report income on them, as required by law,” it said.

The bank was said to have had 9,000 American residents of Indian-origin but fewer than 1,400 had disclosed the existence of their accounts.

In a separate prosecution, unnamed HSBC India banking officials were alleged co-conspirators in the case of Arvind Ahuja, a neurosurgeon from Wisconsin who allegedly hid 5.5 million pounds in secret offshore HSBC accounts and filed false tax returns.

It was claimed Ahuja and HSBC officials used “undeclared accounts in Jersey, India and other countries for the purpose of concealing income from the IRS”.

Ahuja was fined 222,000 pounds and ordered to serve three years probation.

In another case, HSBC India representatives are alleged to have advised New Jersey businessman Vaibhav Dahake to transfer money in batches of 6,500 pounds to “stay below the radar”.

The bank officials are alleged to have “advised and assisted” in tax evasion.

Dahake admitted concealing undeclared bank accounts in 2011, but said bank representatives had solicited him to open accounts that paid high interest rates and would not be declared to tax officials.

HSBC has been at the centre of a major storm after files were exposed by Herve Falciani, who started working for the HSBC private bank in Geneva in 2006.

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