India-Swiss talks on black money in Dec

New Delhi: India will begin in December its first round of consultations with the Swiss Government on tracing black money stashed by Indians in banks in that country, but there is no guarantee of prosecution of offenders on the basis of information secured from them.

Finance Ministry sources said that Indian officials will have their first round of discussions with officials of Swiss Government to evolve a legal system that will enable India to trace black money stashed in tax havens in that country.

They said that such a system could be evolved through a Double Taxation Avoidance Treaty (DTAT) with Switzerland on the model of the agreements reached with countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

But, the sources said, that while DTAT could lead to information being secured from Switzerland in specific cases in which individuals would have violated laws in India it cannot guarantee that such persons could also be prosecuted for that offence.

This is because, they point out, that in a similar case in April, Germany gave information in a case where an individual had violated tax laws and on the information given by the German government tax due from him was also collected.

But Germany gave the information on the specific condition that no prosecution would be launched against the individual and the government had to comply with that condition, the sources said.