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Switzerland will assist India in getting confirmation of the genuineness of bank documents on specific requests made by the Indian side for its tax administration purposes.
This is reflected in the joint statement issued by Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das and State Secretary Jacques De Watteville after their meeting in Berne to discuss bilateral and multilateral topics related to fiscal and financial matters.
At this meeting, Switzerland also agreed to swiftly provide information on requests related to non-banking matters.
De Watteville indicated that Switzerland would be willing to examine requests for which investigations had been carried out independently from what the Swiss government considers as data obtained in breach of its domestic laws.
This could be reassuring for the Indian revenue authorities who hit a wall in a recent case involving several Indians’ accounts held with HSBC Geneva.
The Swiss authorities had declined to share information on such banking accounts on the ground that the information sought by Indian side were based on details involving stolen data.
The Swiss domestic laws forbid their authorities from sharing banking information related to stolen data.
In order to deal expeditiously with pending cases (for information sharing), Das has agreed to indicate to the Swiss competent authority which cases should be dealt with as a matter of priority and to give additional information where appropriate.
The visit of the high-level Indian delegation led by Das to Switzerland is significant as it showed the Modi-led Government’s keenness to keep its general election manifesto promise of tracking down and bringing back black money stashed in foreign banks and offshore accounts.
“We will proactively engage with foreign governments to facilitate information sharing on black money”, the BJP election manifesto had said.
On the issue of black money, the Government has already set up a task force to bring back black money stashed abroad and recommend amendments to existing laws and enactment of new laws.
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