India gets fourth set of Swiss bank account details

New Delhi, October 10

India has received the fourth set of Swiss bank account details of its nationals and organisations as part of an annual automatic information exchange under which Switzerland has shared particulars of nearly 34 lakh financial accounts with 101 countries.

Mostly linked to businessmen, NRIs included

The details relate mostly to businessmen, including non-resident Indians now settled in several South-East Asian countries as well as in the US, the UK and even some African and South American countries

The exchanged information allows the tax authorities to verify whether taxpayers have correctly declared their financial accounts in their tax returns.

It is understood that the details relate mostly to businessmen, including non-resident Indians now settled in several South-East Asian countries as well as in the US, the UK and even some African and South American countries. The exchange happened last month and the next set of information would be shared by Switzerland in September 2023.

India had received the first set of details from Switzerland under AEOI (Automatic Exchange of Information) in September 2019. It was among 75 countries to get such information that year. Last year, India was among 86 such partner countries. the Swiss authorities have already shared information on more than 100 Indian citizens and entities so far this year on receipt of requests for administrative assistance in cases involving probes into financial wrongdoings including tax evasion, the officials added. This count has been almost same in the past few years. However, many of these cases are of older accounts, most of which were closed 4-5 years back. The AEOI is applicable only to accounts that are active or were closed during 2018. Switzerland had agreed to the AEOI with India after a long process, including a review of the necessary legal framework in India on data protection and confidentiality.

The AEOI data is expected to be useful for establishing watertight cases against those with slush money, as it provides entire details of deposits and transfers as well as of all earnings, including through investments in securities and other assets. Officials said the new details shared with India pertain to “hundreds of financial accounts”, including many cases of multiple accounts associated with some individuals, corporates and trusts. They did not share more details due to the confidentiality clause in information exchange. But the data would be used extensively in probes of suspected tax evasion and other wrongdoings including of money laundering and terror funding, they said. India has figured prominently among those having received the information for the fourth year in a row and the details shared with Indian authorities pertained to a large number of individuals and organisations having accounts in Swiss financial institutions.