India To Rope In G-20 In Its Drive To Unearth Black Money

India will try to rope in G-20 in its endeavour to unearth black money stashed away Swiss bank and other tax havens. It will also push to include retrospective sharing of information related to black money, which would be based on the new global information-sharing format prepared by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Finance ministers of G-20 will meet later this week in Australia to endorse the information-sharing proposal. Switzerland has said the information-sharing agreement between India and Switzerland came into effect in 2011, and it will not provide any information related to accounts opened prior to this. Minister of State for Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman, will represent India at the G-20.

“We have made huge progress with regard to information sharing... We want this to become more meaningful and for that it's important that countries share data on bank accounts with retrospective basis," said a Finance Ministry official.

Illegal black money deposited in Swiss banks has long been a major political issue in the country. The Modi-led central government stepped up efforts to bring back the money from Swiss banks.