India inks disclosure pacts with nine tax havens

In the first step towards bringing back unaccounted money stashed away in tax havens abroad, the Indian government said it has entered into accords with nine jurisdictions to share information on such transactions. “Now the central government can initiate and negotiate agreements for exchange of information for the prevention of evasion or avoidance of income tax and assistance in collection of income tax with these nine specified territories,” an official statement said. The nine jurisdictions include Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey (all British Crown Dependencies), the Netherlands Antilles (an autonomous part of the Dutch kingdom) and Macau (a special administrative region of China). The notification of Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China, as a specified territory for the purpose of Section 90 of the Income Tax Act 1961 is also under process.