NEW DELHI: The government has requested for more information from the Swiss authorities and the possible reasons for media reports suggesting a huge rise of funds by Indians in Swiss banks.
However, the government feels there does not appear to be any significant possibility of increase of deposits in Swiss banks due to undeclared incomes of Indian residents.
This is because India and Switzerland are signatories to the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (MAAC) and Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (MCAA), which have a significant deterrent effect on tax evasion through undisclosed assets abroad, stated the official release.
These instruments enable automatic exchange of information (AEOI) between the two countries for sharing of financial account information. Since the signing of these pacts, exchange of financial account information for citizens of both countries has taken place in 2019 as well as in 2020, it added.
In view of the existing legal arrangement for exchange of information of financial accounts, the government feels four factors could potentially explain the increase in deposits. These are an increase in deposits in India-based Swiss bank branches, increase in inter-bank transactions between Swiss and Indian banks, capital increase for a subsidiary of a Swiss company in India and increase in the liabilities connected with the outstanding derivative financial instruments.
The statement noted that media reports allude to the fact that the figures reported are official figures reported by banks to Swiss National Bank (SNB) and do not indicate the quantum of much-debated alleged black money held by Indians in Switzerland.
Further, these statistics do not include the money that Indians, NRIs or others might have in Swiss banks in the names of third-country entities.
Reports stated that deposits by Indians have risen to over Rs 20,700 crore at the end of 2020 from Rs 6,625 crore at the end of 2019, reversing a two-year declining trend. They also state that this is also the highest figure of deposits in the last 13 years.
However, customer deposits have actually fallen from the end of 2019. The funds held through fiduciaries have also more than halved from the end of 2019. The biggest increase is in “Other amounts due from customers”. These are in form of bonds, securities and various other financial instruments.