Money owned by Indians in Swiss banks drops to record low of Rs 8,392 crore

In May this year, the finance ministry announced that the government has unearthed tax evasion of around Rs 50,000 crore of indirect taxes and undisclosed income of Rs 21,000 crore through a series of measures over the past two years.

The Indian Express had earlier exposed accounts held by Indians in February of 2015 exposed a list of Swiss bank account holders which included industrialists and politicians. You can read that list here and check out our entire coverage of the Swiss Leaks, here.

The leaked files, based on the inner workings of HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm, relate to accounts holding more than US$100bn.

Earlier this month, Switzerland assured India of stepped up cooperation in its hunt for unearthing black money stashed by Indians in Swiss banks. It agreed to send a top official to New Delhi to extensively deliberate on the issue.

Swiss President Johann Schneider-Amman had sent his state secretary for international financial matters to explore enhanced cooperation on the issue.

“Combating the menace of black money and tax evasion is also our shared priority. We discussed the need for an early and expeditious exchange of information to bring to justice the tax offenders.

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Swiss banks, known for their banking secrecy practices, have come under global pressure as countries, including India, are stepping up efforts to crack down on the black money menace.

As part of its bilateral treaty for administrative assistance and exchange of information with Switzerland, India has sought details about numerous individuals and companies from the Alpine nation as part of its crackdown against those stashing black money in Swiss banks.

Tax authorities are probing a number of cases of tax evasion and black money stashed abroad. The probe had gained momentum after a leaked list of hundreds of Indian clients of HSBC’s Geneva branch found its way to the Indian tax authorities.

Last month, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said India had signed an agreement with Switzerland and received details of those people having accounts in HSBC. “We completed assessment of those people who had accounts in HSBC, Switzerland. We assessed Rs 6,000 crore black money which was in HSBC. We filed criminal cases against them,” he had said.

India is keen on an automatic exchange of information about individuals who fail to disclose their foreign assets to discourage stashing of ill-gotten wealth abroad.