An information-sharing agreement
between India and Switzerland that recently became effective aims
to help tackle the problem of ‘black money’ as Swiss financial institutions can now be
requested to disclose the banking and tax-related details for
Indian customers.
Commenting on the initiative, known as the
Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTTA), Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh recently said: “The era of bank secrecy is
over.”
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In spite of these comments, Swiss ambassador
to India Philippe Welti was quick to clarify that the privacy of
individuals must be maintained when deciding on data sharing.
A long time coming
India and Switzerland had signed a protocol in
August 2010 to revise the DTAA, but it took more than a year to
implement the treaty.
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By GlobalDataThe revised treaty was approved by the Swiss
Parliament on 17 June 2011 and came into effect after a public
scrutiny period of 100 days ending on 6 October 2011.
The provisions of the revised Indo-Swiss DTAA
will only provide information on financial transactions entered
into by individuals and companies post January 2011.
