Switzerland to Share Bank Account Details from September 2018

BENGALURU: Switzerland has given in to India’s persistent request and agreed to share Swiss bank accounts details with India. This is seen as a big move by the government to recover black money stashed away in Switzerland. But Switzerland will not share details of accounts prior to September 2018. The first exchange of information is supposed to take place in September 2019.

According to the joint declaration, both the countries will start collecting information in 2018 and exchange it from 2019 onwards.

While Switzerland has agreed on automatic exchange of information, India, on its part, has promised to protect the confidentiality of the data, given the sensitive nature of the case.

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia tweeted: “The income tax department will be able to obtain information from accounts of all Indians in Switzerland from 2018 onwards.”

Switzerland which has always been in the firing line for its strong secrecy clauses till a few years ago around its banking services, which has resulted in Indians allegedly putting money in Swiss banks.

A concerted world pressure has resulted in Switzerland giving in and finally relenting on the tough secrecy clauses, which made impossible for countries like India to extract information about the black money stashed away in Swiss accounts. The Switzerland Department of Finance said the automatic exchange of information with India will be implemented based on the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (MCAA) on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information.

The Swiss Federal Council has initiated the process and authorized the Federal Department of Finance to start the groundwork for the introduction of the AEOI with India and other countries.

According to the Indian Finance Ministry, fighting this menace of black money and bringing back the money stashed in foreign accounts has been a top priority for this government and it will leave no stone unturned to achieve this goal.

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