WHILE addressing the G20 gathering
here, the Indian Minister of State for Finance, Ms Nirmala Sitharaman,
extended India's support to the new
global standard on automatic exchange of information, which would enable
the tax authorities, of both developed and developing countries, to receive
information about taxpayers hiding their money in offshore financial centres
and tax havens through multilayered entities with non-transparent ownership,
on an automatic basis. This would be the key to prevent international tax
evasion and avoidance and would be instrumental in getting information
about unaccounted money stashed abroad and ultimately bringing it back,
she added.
The
Minister emphasised that the
new global standards on automatic exchange of information should be implemented
with a common timeline with coverage of as many countries as possible. In
addition to providing a critical mass to the success of the new standard,
this would also be cost effective for financial institutions. 46 countries,
including India, have agreed for a common timeline to exchange information
automatically from 2017, added she.
She
supported the pilot on
automatic exchange of information proposed by Global Forum to support and
assist the developing countries in implementing the new global standards.
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