Black money: Significant progress in tax cooperation with India, says Swiss govt

Berne/New Delhi: As the fight against black money continues, Switzerland has said cooperation with India on tax matters has made significant progress with regular contacts between officials from the two sides.

India and Switzerland have been working closely on mutual administrative assistance on tax matters and both sides have expressed their willingness to step up the cooperation.

Swiss government has said there has been a regular dialogue at various levels since 2014.

These dialogues have contributed to better understanding and significant progress in cooperation on tax matters, the European nation said in the latest report on 'international financial and tax matters'.

When it comes to cooperation on tax matters, India is one of the four important partners for Switzerland. Other countries are the US, France and Italy.

Prepared by the Swiss Federal Department of Finance, the report provides information on activities in the areas of financial market regulation, engagement in international financial bodies and international tax policy in 2015. It also gives an outlook on upcoming challenges.

The report was approved by the Swiss Federal Council on January 27.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Swiss counterpart Ueli Maurer had met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting at Davos.

Separately, Jaitley and Maurer had told PTI that both the countries are willing to step up their cooperation on tax matters.

Jaitley had said that Switzerland is "extremely keen" on greater cooperation in India's fight against suspected black money stashed in Swiss banks.

Maurer had said the country's cooperation on tax matters with India in terms of sharing information on suspected black money cases would continue at "a good level".

On whether there could be a greater cooperation on information exchange in tax matters, Maurer had said: "We have already agreed on more cooperation and this is working well and should continue."

"We will continue the cooperation at a good level".

In recent months, Switzerland has disclosed names of over a dozen Indians about whom information has been sought by the Indian government amid suspicion that their Swiss bank accounts were being used for stashing illicit funds.

Meanwhile, FDF has said the report shows Switzerland still has to overcome numerous challenges regarding international financial and tax matters.

Switzerland should continue to have the best framework for a secure and competitive financial centre which should contribute significantly to the country's prosperity in the future too, FDF noted.