On June 15, 2016 the Swiss State Secretary for International Financial Matters, Jacques de Watteville, met his counterparts, the Indian Financial Services Secretary, Hasmukh Adhia, and the Indian Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs, Shaktikanta Das in New Delhi. During their meeting they discussed bilateral and multilateral tax and financial issues and signed a Joint Statement.
Below a selection of remarks made in the Joint Statement.
“On the issue of requests based on what Switzerland considers as data obtained in breach of Swiss law, Revenue Secretary Adhia, while reaffirming India's position that Switzerland should share information in all cases in accordance with its treaty obligations, noted the progress made in a number of Indian requests based on investigations carried out independently of the ‘stolen data’. Secretary Adhia welcomed the decision of the Swiss Federal Council to dispatch to the Swiss Parliament a proposal to revise the Tax Administrative Assistance Act in order to clarify, in accordance with the OECD standard, the possibility to cooperate on requests based on data obtained in breach of Swiss law. A timely revision of the Swiss law in respect of stolen data would take the Indo-Swiss tax cooperation to a new level.”
“Referring to the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting held in Washington D.C. in April 2016, the Anti-Corruption Summit held in London in May 2016 and in view of the recent challenges posed by the Panama Papers, Secretary Adhia and State Secretary de Watteville recognized the need to take firm collective action on improving basic, legal and beneficial ownership information of legal persons and legal arrangements, while underlining the importance of full implementation of FATF standards in this regard.”
“The discussions showed a convergence of views with regard to tackling offshore tax evasion. State Secretary de Watteville informed that Switzerland now has the necessary legal bases to begin with the implementation of automatic exchange of information (AEOI) under common reporting standard (CRS). Recalling the commitment of both the countries to the global standard on AEOI, Secretary Adhia and State Secretary de Watteville initiated discussions for the implementation of AEOI between the two countries and agreed to work towards concluding the agreement within a reasonable timeframe keeping in view their national parliamentary procedures and the need of a level playing field. They agreed that experts of both countries would convene swiftly at technical level not later than midSeptember 2016 to further discuss the modalities for the reciprocal bilateral implementation of AEOI between India and Switzerland with the view to reaching an agreement at the earliest, possibly by the end of the year.”
Click here to be forwarded to the text of the Joint Statement as available on the website of the Swiss Federal Department of Finance, which will open in a new window.
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