Get India's Stolen Money Back

Published: Sunday, Oct 10, 2010, 0:18 IST By Mayank Aggarwal Place: New Delhi Agency: DNA Observing that Indian citizens are keen to know about the amount of black money stashed away in foreign banks, a full bench of the Central Information Commission (CIC) has directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to reveal “an estimate of the total volume of such money involved in the investigations they are presently conducting.” The decision came on an application filed by a VR Chandran who had asked if the “union finance ministry is aware of the existence of such secret accounts of Indian citizens in Swiss banks amounting to 1456 billion US dollars.” He had also asked for action to be taken in order to find the identity of the account holders, list of depositors, action contemplated if deposits are illegal and if the Indian government had asked the Swiss authorities for repatriating the illegal money. But when ED — the government’s principal agency to check and undo illegal stashing away of

(AFP) – 3 days ago PARIS — The OECD on Tuesday took the Philippines off its list of tax havens, leaving just 11 "grey list" jurisdictions that have not implemented internationally accepted tax standards. "The Philippines today moved up to the list of jurisdictions that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed tax standard," said the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The move came after the Asian country overturned domestic legal restrictions that prevented its tax authorities from obtaining and exchanging certain types of information, such as bank information, the OECD said in a statement. The Philippines had previously been on the "grey list" of territories that had committed to internationally accepted tax standards but had not yet fully implemented them. Now just 11 territories or countries remain on that list, including Uruguay, Panama, Liberia and a handful of island states in the Pacific. There are no

Sep 29, 2010 By Jonathan Kwok A GLOBAL forum to implement better standards on exchanging tax data has attracted more members but it now needs to work to prove to international observers that it is effective. That is the view of Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for Finance and Transport, who addressed the body's annual meeting here on Wednesday. Mrs Lim told the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes that the organisation has become more inclusive and representative. It now has 95 member jurisdictions compared with 87 a year ago.'The Global Forum allows all members, whether big or small, developed or developing, to participate on an equal footing,' she said.'Members are held to a consistent set of expectations with regard to the implementation of a common and internationally agreed standard for the exchange of information. 'The forum was established in 2000 and radically restructu

Govt revamping Benami Transaction Act to keep check on black money Hush Hush Black money:  Indiamoneyback.blogspot.com   Shruti Srivastava Posted online: Mon Sep 20 2010, 09:03 hrs New Delhi : Worried over the speedy growth of a parallel economy in the country, with black money amounting to almost one-fourth of India’s GDP, the government is planning to crack down on such illegal transactions, at least those related to property. The finance ministry is revamping the Benami Transaction Act, 1988, to keep a check on such transactions, which are entered into for avoiding taxes and hiding accumulated assets. Though there exists the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988, prohibiting benami transactions and providing for government acquisition of the property held benami, the rules to make confiscation of property and other provisions effective have not been issued due to several lacunae in the Act. Sources told The Indian Express that the Central Board of Direct Taxes has start

NEW DELHI - India’s Finance Ministry Sept 13 said safe harbor rules—a set of norms that would enable the income tax (I-T) authorities to accept without scrutiny the tax returns by the Indian units of foreign companies—would be soon put in place. “Safe harbor rules are at an advanced stage of consideration. I can’t share how the guidelines are going to be...it will be a very favorable program... we are working on it and it will be in place as early as possible,” Central Board of Direct Taxes Chairman S S N Moorthy said at a seminar here. He said the norms would be taxpayer friendly. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has set up a committee to formulate rules for the safe harbor provisions on transfer pricing returns. Transfer pricing refers to the price at which one arm of a company, usually a multinational corporation, transfer goods or services to another division of the same organization in order to calculate each arm’s profit and loss separately. The committ