Central
Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Nitin Gupta said the Income Tax
Department will analyse the bank accounts of Indian nationals and organisations
it received from Swiss Bank and will take action under the Black Money Act in
case any tax evasion was found.
Nitin
Gupta, who recently got an extension for nine months in tenure, said, “We have
received information about bank accounts of Indian nationals and organisations
in the Swiss Bank as part of the annual automatic information exchange under
which Switzerland has shared particulars of nearly 36 lakh financial accounts
with 104 countries.”
The latest
set of information shared by Swiss authorities as part of the annual automatic
information exchange, was notably the fifth such tranche. The first such
exchange with India took place in 2019.
“Our
department (will) work on that information. If some Indian nationals have
assets in foreign countries and had not informed the Income Tax department and
are liable to pay taxes, we act against such persons under the black money act,”
Gupta added.
In October
2022, Bharat received the fourth tranche of information on financial accounts
from Switzerland since the two countries entered into an Automatic Exchange Of
Information (AEOI) agreement in 2018, in order to improve tax discipline and
avert potential evasion.
The annual
exchange of information allows countries to verify whether taxpayers have
correctly declared their financial accounts abroad in their tax returns.
The
exercise by the Swiss authorities is strictly meant for “tax only” purposes. In
Bharat, the data is kept in the custody of and for action by the Central Board
of Direct Taxes (CBDT).
In early
January 2023, Switzerland’s ambassador to Bharat Ralf Heckner had said he “almost
heard nothing” on black money in the last two years of his tenure and that the
matter was dealt with in a bilateral treaty between Switzerland and Bharat by
means of an automatic exchange of banking information between the two countries.
The Swiss
envoy had said black money was “not an issue anymore.”
“I have
been Swiss ambassador for more than two years and I almost heard nothing or
hardly anything about black money. The black money issue has been dealt with by
a bilateral treaty between Switzerland and India in 2018 on the automatic
exchange of banking information between Switzerland and India (in both
directions),” said the Swiss ambassador.
ANI
