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

TNN, Sep 17, 2010, 03.07am IST NEW DELHI: Reiterating its earlier stand, the government on Thursday declined to part with information regarding bank accounts held by Indian taxpayers in Liechtenstein's LTG Bank in response to an RTI application. The finance ministry said the information received from German authorities had been passed on to income tax authorities and could not be disclosed as it was exempted under Section 8 of the RTI Act. The ministry claimed that disclosure would adversely affect the nation's sovereignty, and the information shared by a foreign country is confidential. In response to an application filed by activist S C Agrawal seeking details of black money stashed in Swiss bank accounts by Indians, the finance ministry said, "There is no verifiable information available about the quantum of Indian money deposited in Swiss banks." Regarding efforts made to retrieve this wealth, the ministry said a writ petition ha

Publish Date: Friday,3 September, 2010, at 12:36 PM Doha Time Former federal law minister Ram Jethmalani yesterday alleged several leaders of the ruling Congress Party had illegal funds stashed in foreign tax havens.The Rajya Sabha MP of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said that huge amounts of money stolen by criminal offenders from the pockets of poor people of India were hidden in foreign banks. “It is increasingly certain that bigwigs of the Congress are involved in these grave crimes, including (party chief) Sonia Gandhi and her son (Rahul),” Jethmalani alleged.He said that the latest protocol with the Swiss government was a further attempt to blockade the acquisition of information about these highly influential criminals.“The protocol does not even make sense. The double taxation treaty has nothing to do with the present situation,” Jethmalani said. India said on Tuesday a tax pact signed with Switzerland should help the government track illicit funds parked in Swiss bank ac

Retrieve Indian Money Stashed Abroad: Prof. VaidyanathanIt is possible to retrieve the black money kept abroad if the government has the will to do it, says the professor from IIM Bangalore By YenthaOn Sep 01, 2010 Pulimood, Trivandrum: Professor R Vaidyanathan, the Professor of Finance and Control from IIM Bangalore, said that bringing back the trillions of dollars of Indian money kept in tax safe havens like Switzerland is not so difficult. However, he doubted whether the government had the will to do it. rof. Vaidyanathan talks about the need to get back the Indian money stashed abroad Prof. Vaidyanathan was lecturing on “Effect of Black Money In The Indian Economy” at the monthly lecture conducted by the Bharatiya Vichara Kendram. “When the recession struck the west, countries tried to get the money their citizens had stacked away in tax havens. India should also put pressure on these places to get back their share. Countries like Switzerland have a huge investment in our country.

2010-08-31 16:10:00 Last Updated: 2010-08-31 16:33:29 India's Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee speaks with the Associated Press ...New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday made it clear that the revised double taxation avoidance agreement that India had signed with Switzerland on Monday would not help the country in getting back the black money stashed away by Indians in Swiss bank accounts. "I would like to make it quite clear, that as far as Swiss laws are concerned, they don't give any information of their banking transactions," Mukherjee taold the Lok Sabha. "Swiss laws on information regarding bank transactions are strictly enforced, and the only information provided would be for taxation purposes," he added. "Swiss banks' transactions is so strictly enforced that only once in 1945, the assets of the Nazi leaders, who were subjected to November 12 (Nuremberg trials) were revealed by the Swiss bank. Before that and after

The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday that it would drop a closely watched civil lawsuit against the Swiss bank giant UBS after the Swiss government said it was on course to hand over details on thousands of American clients suspected of using their accounts to evade taxes. The I.R.S. said it had received details on 2,000 clients so far and expected to receive information on the remaining 2,450 this fall, Lynnley Browning reports in The New York Times. While that is past the Tuesday deadline set in an August 2009 deal between Switzerland and the I.R.S. for the 4,450 names, the agency said it was confident of the country’s intentions to comply with the agreement announced by Swiss officials on Thursday. The statement by the I.R.S. puts to rest a serious headache for UBS, the world’s largest private bank, and for Switzerland over offshore private banking services that enabled wealthy Americans to evade taxes. The I.R.S. had threatened to revive its legal challenge to UBS through a b

NEW DELHI: Facing flak from India and others for acting as a safe haven to foreigners stowing away wealth, Swiss banks have said they will share account details of suspected money launderers if the request is supported by four specific details.   The specific details that someone requesting information should provide are the identity of the suspected offenders, details of the alleged offence, along with facts to undermine the suspicion, name of the bank and branch concerned in Switzerland and a written request from the foreign country's tax authority.   India is believed to have completed talks with Switzerland to amend their bilateral tax treaty, which would pave the way for authorities here to seek details of illicit wealth stashed away by Indians in Swiss banks.   Having made it clear earlier that it won't encourage "fishing expeditions" by any country, Swiss banks have also said that account details would not be exchanged automatically and would be shared with

Our Indians' curruption Money - 70, 00,000 Crores Rupees In Swiss Bank 1) Yes, 70 lakhs crores rupees of India are lying in Switzerland banks. This is the highest amount lying outside any country, from amongst 180 countries of the world, as if India is the champion of Black Money. 2) Swiss Government has officially written to Indian Government that they are willing to inform the details of holders of 70 lakh crore rupees in their Banks, if Indian Government officially asks them. 3) On 22-5-08, this news has already been published in The Times of India and other Newspapers based on Swiss Government's official letter to Indian Government. 4) But the Indian Government has not sent any official enquiry to Switzerland for details of money which has been sent outside India between 1947 to 2008.. The opposition party is also equally not interested in doing so because most of the amount is owned by politicians and it is every Indian's money. 5) This money belongs to our c

By Patrick Donahue and Holger Elfes - Jul 22, 2010 The German government may be about to step up its pursuit of tax evaders amid reports that a new CD containing stolen bank data has been offered for sale to state authorities. Schleswig-Holstein, the most northerly of Germany’s 16 states, is in talks with an unidentified source to buy the CD containing details of “hundreds” of people with money hidden in a bank in Liechtenstein, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported today, without saying where it got the information. The data relates to accounts worth 500 million euros ($641 million) at Liechtensteinische Landesbank, the Munich-based newspaper said. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government recouped 200 million euros in back taxes from a disk with data from Liechtenstein purchased in 2008, and has bought further CDs with details of tax evasion involving accounts in Switzerland. The latest CD is at least the seventh to be offered to German authorities and Schleswig-Holstein will probably buy