Under unrelenting pressure from Opposition parties and strictures from Supreme Court over Centre's seemingly lethargic approach to black money, the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, is likely to unveil on Tuesday the strategy to be adopted for bringing back the unaccounted money stashed by Indians in foreign banks.
“The Finance Minister will hold a press conference on the issues related to black money tomorrow,” a Finance Ministry official said here on Monday.
Indications are that Mr Mukherjee will give out details of the countries with which India is renegotiating its double taxation avoidance pacts or looking to enter into tax information exchange agreements (TIEA). The Finance Minister may also give the status of implementation of the revised DTAA with Switzerland.
India had recently amended its DTAA with Switzerland to obtain banking-related information from Swiss banks in case of Indians against whom there are tax evasion related charges. The changes to the DTAA are yet to come into force as the Swiss Parliament has to give its nod for the revised pact.
The Supreme Court had recently come down heavily on the Government for its reluctance to disclose the names of those Indians who had stashed money in LGT Bank of Liechtenstein.
The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, had recently said that there was “no instant solution” to bring back the so-called black money stashed in foreign banks and that information with the Government cannot be made public due to treaty obligations.
The black money issue is understood to have come up for discussion at the last meeting of the Union Cabinet during which Dr Singh had said that it was not possible to make public specific details such as unaccounted money parked in Swiss banks.
The Finance Minister had pointed out that the Government had received information about the black money accounts in foreign banks according to international treaties and if this is revealed, no government would share such details in future.
It was emphasised that the information was shared purely for taxation purposes and the Government intends to do the same without making public the names of account holders or other details.