Black money: Manmohan Singh urges G20 to take strong steps

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has urged the G20 nations to send a strong message to control the 'serious problems' of tax evasion and illicit flows that have grave bearing on the developing nations' future.

Dr Singh is in Cannes, France to attend the Sixth G20 Summit in the backdrop of the Eurozone debt crisis even as public opinion back home is rising against corruption, including the issue of millions being abroad by some Indians.

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The Congress-led UPA government has been pilloried over the issue of black money hoarded by Indians in overseas tax havens by the opposition political parties

The prime minister said that the "G-20 countries should take the lead in agreeing to automatic exchange of tax-related information with each other."

Speaking during his intervention at the meeting of the world's largest economies in this pretty French resort, he said that such tax-related information must be shared no matter how divergent the views are on what comprises tax evasion as opposed to tax fraud.

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"Irrespective of artificial distinctions such as past or present, for tax evasion or tax fraud, in the spirit of our London Summit that 'the era of bank secrecy is over'," the

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said.
Several G-20 leaders have endorsed India's call to G-20 to clamp down on tax havens.

He said there has been a considerable progress on this issue compared to five years back and that there is much more access to information now on tax frauds.
India's concerns on the tax haven issue are likely to be reflected in the communique of the G-20 Summit on Friday.

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India signs convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters

Meanwhile, India affirmed its intention to sign the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, along with China and Saudi Arabia, at G20 Summit on Thursday.

Among the GT20 countries, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Turkey have signed the convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax matters.

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France, Italy, Korea, Mexico, UK and USA have signed the convention earlier.

Speaking on the occasion, Economic Affairs Secretary R Gopalan said that tax evasion and illicit flows are serious problem and over the last two years, in order to check this trend, India  has negotiated 19 new Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements and 17 new Tax Information Exchange Agreements.

In addition 22 existing Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements have been renegotiated. All these 58 Agreements provide for tax information exchange according to international standard.

For these instruments to be effective, he said that it is vital that consensus is built on applying the standards to past information, including banking information, so that earlier evasion is also investigated. 

This is essential, if the spirit of the G20 London Summit -- that 'the era of bank secrecy is over' -- is to be respected. 

He urged members of the G20 to lead by exchanging information automatically with their treaty partners and urge other countries to do the same. 

He expressed hope that the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters would help progress in this regard.