Panama Papers: IT dept sends 200 info exchange requests

New Delhi, Sep 4 (PTI) Widening its probe in the PanamaPapers case, the Income Tax department has invoked various taxinformation exchange treaties and sent about 200 requests inorder to obtain banking and other financial data of Indiansnamed in the list. Officials said, while about 192 such requests havealready been dispatched to the foreign shores, about a dozenmore are in the offing. The countries to which thesereferences have been made include the United States, the UK,Singapore, nations in the Caribbean islands, Switzerland,British Virgin Islands and the United Arab Emirates (UAE),among others. The department has also got in touch with about 380entities and individuals named in the list out of which lessthan 200 have owned up the accounts, while the rest haveeither disagreed or their whereabouts are not known and arebeing traced, they said. In order to get hold of all those who are either refusingto own up or about whom there is little information, thedepartment has invoked information exchange treaties like theDouble Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA), Tax InformationExchange Agreement (TIEA) and similar other protocols and havesent 200 requests across the globe to solicit vitalinformation and data about them. "What has been sought is the banking and other financialtransactions data of those Indians named in the list. Therequests carry essential information gathered against suchentities based on the work done in this regard by ITinvestigation wings across the country," they said. The department, in many cases, is facing non-cooperationand and non-acceptance of accounts by numerous entities asrevealed in the Panama Papers and hence had to widen itsapproach towards the foreign jurisdictions and seek and obtain"good and actionable" information. "The cases were vetted by the Central Board of DirectTaxes and, after a case was made out, these requests weresent," they said. A Multi-Agency Group created to probe these cases hasalready submitted five reports to the government and also tothe Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money in thisregard. MORE PTI NES SKDIP