India has completed negotiations of ten new Tax Information Exchange Agreements with Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Jersey, Monaco, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Argentina and Marshall Islands out of 22 identified countries/jurisdictions.
• India has initiated process of negotiation with 65 countries to broaden the scope of Article concerning Exchange of Information to specifically allow for exchange of banking information and information regarding taxpayers not covered by DTAA. As on date, negotiations have been completed with 10 existing DTAA countries to update this Article. Agreed texts have been initialed. Thirteen new DTAAs have also been finalised where the Exchange of Information Article is in line with the international standards. In short negotiations/renegotiations of DTAAs with 23 countries have been completed.
India and Isle of Man have signed a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) on 4th February, 2011 in London. The agreement has been signed by Shri Nalin Surie, High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom from Indian side and Hon. Anne Craine, MHK, Minister of the Treasury from Isle of Man side. This is the second TIEA being signed by India. First TIEA was signed by India with Bermuda in Delhi on 7th October, 2010.
Salient features of the agreement with Isle of Man are:
- It is based on international standard of transparency and exchange of information.
- Information must be foreseeably relevant to the administration and enforcement of the domestic laws of the Contracting Parties concerning taxes covered by the agreement.
- The requesting State has to provide some minimum details about the information requested in order to justify the foreseeably relevance criteria.
- Information is to be treated as secret and can be disclosed to only specified person or authorities,which are tax authorities or the authorities concerned with the determination of tax appeal.
- It also provides for disclosure of information to any other person or entity or authority or any other jurisdiction with the written consent of the competent authority of the requested Party.
- There is a specific provision that the requested Party shall provide upon request the information even though that Party may not need such information for its own tax purposes.
- There is a specific provision for providing banking and ownership information.
- The Agreement also allows exchange of past information in criminal tax matters.
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