WHILE inaugurating the Economic Editors' Conference today, the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, spoke at length on the issue of black money and said that in the past two years, both domestically as well as internationally, India has been successful in creating an environment where a regular flow of banking information has started.

Some of the key achievements which the Minister listed out are:

a) Huge network of amended DTAA (81) and TIEA with tax havens (4) has been created.

b) Specific requests in 333 cases (220 by Foreign Tax Division of CBDT and 113 by FIU) have been made by Indian authorities for obtaining information from foreign jurisdictions.

c) Over 9900 pieces of Information obtained (9743 information by Foreign Tax Division of CBDT and 177 information by FIU) regarding suspicious transactions by Indian citizens from several countries have been obtained which are now under different stages of processing and investigation.

d) Over 30,700 pieces of domestic information about suspicious transactions has been obtained by FIU which are under investigation by respective agencies.

e) Directorate of Transfer Pricing has detected mispricing of Rs. 34,145 crore in last two financial years thus preventing the outflow of this amount to foreign jurisdictions.

f) Investigation wing of CBDT has detected concealed income of Rs.18,750 Crore in last two financial years. During the first five months of the current financial year, concealed income of Rs. 3,014 crores has been detected due to focused searches on the basis of information received from foreign jurisdictions.

g) Directorate of International Taxation has collected taxes of Rs.33,784 crore from cross broader transactions in last two financial years.

h) Under the EOI Article of DTAA with France, India has received some information regarding Indians having bank accounts. In 69 cases, the taxpayers have admitted to the unaccounted income of Rs.397.17 crores. Taxes of Rs. 30.07 crore have also been paid.

i) A Protocol to amend the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) between India and Switzerland which was signed on 30th August 2010 after completion of all formalities.

The revised DTAA will allow India to obtain banking information (as well as information without domestic interest) from Switzerland in specific cases for a period starting from 1st April 2011. The revised DTAA is expected to improve the inflow of banking information to India substantially.

j) India is constructively engaged with Government of Mauritius to update the existing Double Taxation Avoidance Convention (DTAC) in line with the international practices.

k) OECD and Task Force on financial integrity & Economic Development have acknowledged outstanding work done by India in its crusade against Black Money.