India gets first set of Swiss account details under AEOI framework

India, in a bid to analyse details of its citizens, has received the 1st tranche of Swiss bank details of its residents under the automatic exchange of information (AEOI) framework. According to the Switzerland government and the Swiss tax department officials, the next exchange of information on financial accounts with India would happen around September 2020.

Data to provide information on inflow and outflow

The data, however, is said to have been prepared by all Switzerland-based banks under a direction from the Swiss government. The data has been made for it to be despatched further to the Indian authorities. It provides full details of the entire flow of funds to and from all the accounts that were active even for a single day in the year 2018, bankers said.

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According to reports, the data can be quite useful for establishing a strong prosecution case against those who had any unaccounted wealth in those accounts. This because of its ability to provide entire details of deposits and transfers as well as of all earnings including through investments in securities and other asset classes. 

Several bankers and regulatory officials, last month, had said that the details being shared mostly related to businessmen. These included non-resident Indians now settled in several South-East Asian countries as well as in the US, the UK, and even some African and South American countries. They had also admitted that there was a huge outflow from specific accounts in the last few years. The outflow could be traced down to a global crackdown began against the so-called high-secrecy walls associated with the Swiss banks. It had also come to light that several of these accounts got closed.

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AEOI move could be a major boost to India

The AEOI move is being seen as a major boost in India's fight against suspected black money stashed abroad. During the process, Switzerland is expected to share details including account numbers, credit balance, and all kinds of financial income for each Indian client of every Swiss financial institution with the Indian tax authorities. This makes India one of the 75 countries with which Swiss govt has shared information on 3.1 million accounts. 

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(With PTI Inputs)