Black money
22 July 2012. Following the visit of Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong earlier this month to India, the two countries have agreed to share information on tax evaders and black money. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev has been agitating for the repatriation of black money stashed away in foreign countries. This has been a thorny problem for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. It is claimed that a major proportion of the black money is parked in Singapore. Whether this is true or not will be known in coming weeks as a top-level team of Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) meets officials of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Income Tax department on Monday (23 July 2012) to exchange data on a number of cases of black money that India suspects is routed through the banking and financial institutions of Singapore. Both the agencies are expected to discuss measures to strengthen financial enforcement and other related ties within the framework of global institutions like the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Sources said that Singapore has always been helpful to Indian law enforcement agencies, especially in tax matters.
