Tax convention: OECD wants India to speed up ratification

The OECD, a grouping of wealthy nations, hopes that India would go in for quick ratification of the Multilateral Convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters—a multilateral agreement that is now being seen as the ‘gold standard’ for co-operation in tax administration.

The multilateral convention covers all taxes (both direct and indirect taxes), all forms of exchange of information and provides for assistance not just in the assessment of tax but also in the actual collection, according to Mr Jeffrey Owens, Director, Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, OECD.

G20 countries are moving from bilateral to multilateral agreements. At the recent G20 leaders summit at Cannes, India had along with 12 other G20 countries associated with this convention. India has already signed a letter of intent and now quick ratification is required, Mr Owens told Businessline here today.

Mr Owens and senior OECD officials had a bilateral meeting with the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee and his top officials here today. The discussions included the action points arising from the recent G20 Summit at Cannes, progress made by India in extending their tax agreements with so called tax havens or bank secrecy jurisdictions, transparency on tax incentives offered by India and the benefits of Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation.

In a global economy, where high networth individuals and multinational enterprises operate in many jurisdictions,it is now being recognised that bilateral agreements may be inadequate to address multilateral issues, Mr Owens pointed out.

As many as 34 countries have already signed the multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance on tax matters.

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