Time and again, we come across news of people having accounts in Swiss banks; however, we didn’t have solid proof or information on the same but things will not be the same from September 2019, as Indian govt. will get financial details of all the Indian account holders in Swiss banks automatically. Needless to say, this move will assist in fighting the threat of black money which people have hidden in foreign countries.
A ‘joint declaration’ has been signed on Tuesday by Gilles Roduit, deputy chief of mission of Swiss embassy in India and Sushil Chandra, CBDT chairman. The purpose of this declaration is implementing AEOI (Automatic Exchange of Information) between both the countries.
Here’s what the finance ministry stated,
“As a result, it will now be possible for India to receive from September, 2019 onwards, the financial information of accounts held by Indian residents in Switzerland for 2018 and subsequent years, on an automatic basis.”
The finance ministry further stated that it is this government’s priority to deal strongly with the black money deposited in foreign accounts.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann met each other on June 6 in Geneva where they talked about the need of swift flow of information between both the countries and to start the process early for finalizing the conditions of Agreement for Automatic Exchange of Information, which will help in fighting the problem of tax evasion.
Consequently, Hasmukh Adhia, the Indian revenue secretary and Jacques de Watteville, Switzerland’s state secretary for international financial matters, met on June 15 to speed up the whole process of implementation of AEOI between India and Switzerland.
After the demonetization decision, opposition parties were slamming the government for not making sufficient efforts to bring back the black money deposited in foreign countries, especially in the Swiss banks.
This is another step taken by Modi Govt. to fight the problem of black money and hopefully, it will give great results. What do you say? Share your views in the comments section below.