India is expected to sign Double Taxation Avoidance Treaties with more countries as part of measures to ensure smoother international trade, a senior finance ministry official said on Wednesday.
The Centre is also working on the modalities to strengthen anti-money laundering activities, revenue secretary K M Chandrasekhar told the Economic Editors conference in New Delhi.
At present, India has signed such treaties with over 75 countries, including the US, UK, Russia, Israel, China, Japan, Mauritius, Singapore and many European nations.
The DTATs are aimed at preventing discrimination between tax-payers and providing legal and fiscal certainty. In addition, such treaties contain provisions for mutual information exchange and reducing litigation.
Chandrasekhar said the idea was that all the DTATs were formulated in such a way so as to ensure adequate exchange of information on holding companies abroad.
"We have had a number of discussion with many countries and in the new DTATs care would be taken to minimise the problems of taxation of holding companies," he said.
On money laundering, Chandrasekhar said the government has "identified the provision in the Act where enforcement is required and other provisions where analysis and collection of data are required."
