G20 Deal Opens Way for India to Track Black Money Stashed Abroad

In a  move that will help India track its black money stashed abroad, G20 members will on Sunday agree on a deal that will allow automatic sharing of all bank details with tax authorities at the end of each year. As a result, India will be able to track and recover the entire stash of illicit wealth, the information on which was being denied by several countries.

On Sunday, 45 countries, including India, Mauritius and Switzerland are expected to agree on the deal and will take a step ahead to become the "early adopters". The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Global Tax Forum is trying to get the rest 122 countries into committing for the same by September 2017 or by the end of 2018.

According to the deal, the new law would make it mandatory for the countries to share bank information, including account balance and "all income that has accrued during the course of the year" The Times of India reported.

The deal will not only allow the countries to extract bank details for future, but they can also avail account balance information of the past five to six years upon request.

This has come as a major relief to the Indian government, which has been trying to seek bank details from certain countries in order to bring back the black wealth accumulated in banks abroad. Several countries had earlier denied providing information on bank details citing local secrecy laws, but not anymore.

"Someone can't hide behind a trust in the Bahamas. A Swiss bank will have to find the information on who is behind the account and provide income, interest income, dividend and all other financial income in addition to the bank account information," an unnamed source said.