New Delhi: The Income Tax department, probing the secret list of account holders in the Geneva branch of HSBC bank, has approached Swiss revenue authorities for banking data of certain individuals after investigations showed some of them reportedly had other accounts under fictitious names.
The department, which approached the Finance Ministry and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) in this regard recently, has initiated the step in order to build a water tight case against those who have stashed illegal funds abroad and the action has been taken under the recently revised tax information exchange treaty between the two countries.
Top sources involved in the probe said that after India received the list, both the I-T department and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) have gathered vital leads on the financial investments of a certain number of individuals and it is suspected that a number of them hold other Swiss accounts under different names allegedly to evade the tax scanner.
The department, sources said, has also opened I-T assessments of a "specific number" of those named on the same list under the provisions of Wealth Tax laws. The department, through the foreign taxation wing of the CBDT, has approached Swiss authorities as India can now "get information even if it only has limited details regarding the person having bank accounts in Switzerland"....
more
11:30 AM, Nov 18, 2012
Former Swiss bank employee Rudolf Elmer, who gave WikiLeaks the black money list, told CNN-IBN on Sunday that the list included Indian politicians, cricketers and film stars. ...
06:10 PM, Nov 11, 2012
New Delhi: A former Swiss bank employee has claimed that several politicians, cricketers and internationally well-known people have black money in the Swiss banks. Rudolf Elmer, who gave WikiLeaks the black money list told CNN-IBN that he did not sell any data to the Indian government. Speaking via Skype, Elmer said, "There are politicians, cricket players, international well-known people who are part of that sort of information." Meanwhile, the government...
07:28 AM, Nov 11, 2012
New Delhi: A former Swiss bank employee has claimed that several politicians, cricketers and internationally well-known people have black money in the Swiss banks. Rudolf Elmer, who gave WikiLeaks the black money list told CNN-IBN that he did not sell any data to the Indian government. Speaking via Skype, Elmer said, "There are politicians, cricket players, international well-known people who are part of that sort of information." Meanwhile, the government...
07:28 AM, Nov 11, 2012
New Delhi: India Against Corruption (IAC) activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal has refused to accept the government's statement that explained that a probe had been initiated into the information provided by the government of France regarding several Indians who had accounts in foreign banks. Speaking to reporters, Kejriwal said he had five questions for the government. "Do you agree that the names and the amounts, that we disclosed, are there in the...
06:44 PM, Nov 10, 2012
New Delhi: The government on Saturday countered India Against Corruption (IAC) activist Arvind Kejriwal's claims that it is not acting on the alleged black money list handed over by the French government in 2010. In a statement, the government said that the information received from the French government had been analysed and investigations were being carried out by different authorities under the Income Tax Act. "Information was received in June,...
04:19 PM, Nov 10, 2012
Congress MP Annu Tandon had rubbished all the allegations made by Arvind Kejriwal against her saying they are completely baseless and malicious. "I deny any such rubbish and whatever he is talking, I don't know about any such thing," she said. ...
08:54 PM, Nov 09, 2012
Banking Consultant Jasmine Arora said that it was not responsible of Arvind Kejriwal to say that opening an account in Swiss banks is easier. Kejriwal had said that the process of opening an account in the Geneva branch of HSBC Bank was easier than opening an account in the SBI account. "Documents show how easy it is to operate the Swiss accounts sitting here in India. Documents show how money ...
04:05 PM, Nov 09, 2012
New Delhi: Amidst a growing global scrutiny of overseas funds deposited in Swiss banks, the quantum of total foreign assets managed by them has dipped by nearly 300 billion Swiss francs (about Rs 20 trillion) since 2008. Also, the share of foreign client assets in Swiss banks dropped to 51 per cent of their total asset under management at the end of 2011 - the lowest in four years. The...
04:56 PM, Jul 09, 2012
New Delhi: Amid a global crackdown against alleged black money in secret accounts of Swiss banks, their bankers are selling a new safe-haven idea to their rich clients from India and other countries -- the high-value 1,000 franc notes to be stored in safe deposit boxes. These boxes -- kept inside the premises of Swiss banks -- are also said to be being used to stash gold, diamond, paintings and...
11:41 AM, Jul 02, 2012
New Delhi: Indians' money in Swiss banks may have risen for the first time in five years, but they account for a meagre 0.14 per cent of total foreign wealth deposited there -- putting India at 55th place globally for such funds. The total overseas funds in Switzerland's banking system stood at 1.53 trillion Swiss francs (about Rs 90 trillion) at the end of 2011, which included 2.18 billion Swiss...
12:02 PM, Jun 17, 2012
New Delhi: Switzerland on Thursday said the quantum of money held by Indians in Swiss banks stood at 2.18 billion Swiss francs (about Rs 12,740 crore) at the end of 2011, rising for the first time in the past five years. The total funds held by Indian individuals and entities include 2.025 billion Swiss francs held directly by them and 158 million held through 'fiduciaries' or wealth managers, shows the...
07:11 PM, Jun 14, 2012
Washington: Bharatiya Janata Party would make public the names of 800 Indian account holders in Swiss Banks if it comes into power in the 2014 general elections, senior party leader Yashwant Sinha has said. "Of course, we will do. Of course, we will do," Sinha told a small audience at an event organised by a recently formed Washington-based Indian American think-tank Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS). "Will...
05:53 PM, May 30, 2012
New Delhi: The illicit outflow of money from India has been estimated at $104 billion as of December last year, according to a report of the Global Financial Integrity (GFI). This has been disclosed by the white paper on black money tabled in Parliament on Monday. But the report does not give any estimate of the government about either black money in India or the amount stashed away in banks...
12:33 AM, May 22, 2012
New Delhi: Days after CBI Chief's statement that Indians are the largest depositors in Swiss banks, Switzerland on Thursday said such estimates and statistics lack evidence and are uncorroborated. In an unusual step, the Embassy of Switzerland here issued a press release saying, "it wishes to make a clarification in view of unsubstantiated media reports that have been recently published about Switzerland and Swiss Banks." But, the release, which did...
06:07 PM, Feb 16, 2012
Speaking on the issue, CBI Director AP Singh said the largest depositors in Swiss Banks were reported to be Indians. ...
05:44 PM, Feb 13, 2012
New Delhi: Indians are the largest depositors in banks abroad with an estimated $ 500 billion (nearly Rs 24.5 lakh crore) of illegal money stashed by them in tax havens, the CBI Director said on Monday. India, in particular, has suffered from the flow of illegal funds to tax havens such as Mauritius, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, British Virgin Islands etc. "It is estimated that around 500 billion dollars of illegal money...
03:19 PM, Feb 13, 2012
Geneva: A state-owned Swiss bank has described a US tax evasion probe as "major challenge" to it and Switzerland's entire banking industry. Zurich-based Zuercher Kantonalbank is one of at least 11 Swiss banks under pressure from the US to give up tax-evading American customers and the bankers who aided them. ZKB said on Friday it never actively sought customers in the United States but did receive millions of dollars in...
11:08 PM, Feb 10, 2012
Washington: The United States has indicted the oldest bank of Switzerland on charges of conspiracy to hide more than $1.2 billion. Significantly, this is the first time an overseas bank has been charged by the US for allegedly facilitating tax fraud by US taxpayers, which comes at a time when a country like India is struggling to address the issue of billions of Indian rupees stashed in various Swiss banks....
09:31 AM, Feb 03, 2012
New Delhi: The Central Information Commission has directed the President's Secretariat to disclose details of correspondence among various ministries and the Delhi Police related to black money. The order came following an appeal by an RTI applicant who had sought to know the action taken on the letters written by him to Finance and External Affairs ministries among other public authorities in connection with the illegal wealth stashed abroad. During...
03:45 PM, Jan 09, 2012
