Black money: Govt doubles strength of foreign tax division in Finance Ministry
"Now that India is renegotiating more than 70 DTAAs and a host of tax exchange information treaties with countries from all parts of the globe, it was necessary to bolster the mechanism at the FT and TR division. The division has never seen so much work b
As part of efforts to fight black money, the government has decided to double the strength of the crucial foreign tax division in Finance Ministry which handles classified tax related information between India, tax haven nations and other countries.
The Ministry recently gave approval for creating a new unit in the Foreign Tax and Tax Research (FT and TR) division under the Central Board of Direct Taxes ( CBDT) which will be headed by a senior Income Tax department officer and two under secretary rank officers.
The division acts as a post office for communication between law enforcement agencies on both sides in cases of suspect tax evasion, mis-pricing and international transactions.
Prior to this, the FT and TR division was recently sanctioned two new units, with two senior IT officers as directors and four new officials in the rank of under secretary.
"Now that India is renegotiating more than 70 DTAAs and a host of tax exchange information treaties with countries from all parts of the globe, it was necessary to bolster the mechanism at the FT and TR division. The division has never seen so much work before," a senior Finance Ministry official said.
The FT and TR division till now had two directors but with these new inductions, the wing will have a total of five directors and a number of other officials who will have access to Suspicious Transaction Reports ( STRs) generated by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).