Finance Minister: Money laundering to become difficult in next 1-2 years…..
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today that with real-time global automatic exchange of information system coming into effect the tax evasion and money laundering will be “extremely difficult” in the next 1-2 years. “I am quite sure that the activity is going in that direction and the next 1-2 years are going to bring significant results because with almost real-time exchange of information, lives are going to become extremely hard as far as the lawbreakers in that matter are concerned,” he said. In his inaugural speech at the international conference on ‘Networking the Networks’, he said tax evasion and parking of illegal money anywhere in the world is increasingly becoming difficult as various international agencies have now stepped in and the G20 has taken an initiative. “… the world is also moving increasingly towards a situation where you can’t shift the profits that you earn in one jurisdiction and erode the capital base of that jurisdiction itself,” he said. At the G20 nations’ Australia summit last November, the leaders endorsed a new global transparency standard using a common reporting standard by 2017-18, by which more than 90 jurisdictions will begin an automatic exchange of tax information. India is one of the early adopters of the automatic exchange of information standard. He also said that the Regional Center for South Asia is going to discuss in the meeting in order to strengthen international cooperation with regard to tax evasion and money laundering. The South Asian Regional Intelligence Coordination Center is likely to be set up, with seven member countries, including India, to be part of it. According to Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, the other countries are Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives. He also added that it will allow South Asia Region to connect with other regional and global platforms and allow quick and secure information exchange to combat global crimes once it is operational.
Unique Times
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