The Finance Ministry has refuted media reports regarding black money allegedly held by Indians in Switzerland.
Reports have appeared in the media stating that funds of Indians in Swiss Banks have risen to over 20 thousand 700 crore rupees at the end of 2020 from six thousand 625 crore rupees at the end of 2019. Swiss Authorities have been requested to provide information on the increase and decrease of deposits.
India and Switzerland are signatories to the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters. Both the countries have also signed the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement. Based on this agreement, automatic exchange of information has been activated from 2018 for sharing financial account information annually between the two countries.
The Finance Ministry has said, in view of the existing legal arrangement for the exchange of information of financial accounts, there does not appear to be any significant possibility of the increase of deposits in the Swiss banks. The Ministry has also said that figures related to deposit money do not include the money that Indians and NRIs might have in Swiss banks in the names of third-country entities.
