BASEL: India ratified Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (MAC) in June 2012 and has also signed the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (MCAA) based on Common Reporting Standards (CRS) on 3rd June, 2015. India and Switzerland signed the ‘Joint Declaration’ for implementation of Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) on the 22nd November, 2016. Through this Joint Declaration, both the jurisdictions intend to introduce on a reciprocal basis automatic exchange of financial account information between each other beginning in the year 2018 (first transmission of data in 2019). The Joint Declaration is subject to MAC being in force in each jurisdiction, signing of MCAA by both jurisdictions, notification of each other under section 7(1)(f) of the MCAA and adequate confidentiality and data safeguards in each jurisdiction.
India has already signed the MCAA and has under section 7(1)(f) of MCAA conveyed to the Coordinating Body its list of intended exchange partners which includes all the signatories of MCAA.
Moving ahead on automatic sharing of details on suspected black money, Switzerland on Thursday initiated its statutory consultation process for bringing into force Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) on tax matters with India and some other countries from January 1, 2018.
The Government has taken several steps to effectively tackle the issue of black money, particularly black money stashed in other countries.
