Black Money Trail: From Swiss Alps To Island Nations

By siliconindia | Monday, 17 November 2014, 05:32 Hrs

NEW DELHI: As India expands its probe into suspected black money stashed abroad, the trail appears to have gone much beyond the Alpine mountain ranges of Switzerland to various island nations and global financial centres like Dubai, Singapore, Luxembourg and Cyprus.

While Switzerland has agreed to cooperate and share details in cases where probe by Indian authorities have independently shown 'tax crimes' prima facie, "a few cases" where such information exchange is taking place involve entities and transactions much beyond Swiss shores.

While exact number of these "few cases" could not be ascertained, sources said that the ongoing cooperation between Swiss and Indian authorities is generating many more leads for further investigations and they suggest routing of funds through various other jurisdictions that range from well- established financial centres like Dubai, Singapore and Luxembourg to numerous small island nations.

India is strengthening its bilateral tax information exchange treaties with many such jurisdictions, but a further push might be required for 'technical assistance'.

While Switzerland has been the focus of India's fight against suspected black money stashed abroad, investigations into various cases show large-scale instances of illicit funds having been channelised abroad through other locations too.

A number of island nations in Caribbean and other parts of the world figure among such locations. India has also signed information exchange pacts on tax matters with a number of such locations including Saint Kitts & Nevis, Bahamas, Bermuda, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar, British Virgin Islands, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Jersey, Macau, Liberia, Argentina, Guernsey and Monaco, among others.

Source: PTI