New Delhi (Reuters): Vice-president of India's opposition Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, on Saturday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of not sharing details in Parliament about tax dodgers who have stashed money in Swiss bank accounts to avoid taxes.
He levelled the charges while addressing a public meeting in the northern hilltown of Dharamsala.
"I want to ask Mr. Modi from this stage, why he has not tabled a list given by the Swiss Bank in Parliament?" asked Gandhi.
Early this year, Switzerland promised to work with Indian authorities to tackle tax dodgers who stash money in Swiss bank accounts to avoid Indian taxes.
"In India only 6 percent black money is in cash, rest is stashed in real estate, land, gold and in foreign banks," claimed Gandhi.
In November, India's finance ministry said New Delhi will start getting financial information of accounts held by its citizens in Swiss banks on automatic basis from September 2019.
Modi's government says it wants to bring back illicit funds deposited by Indians in banks outside the country. Such funds are widely referred to in India as "black money".
Modi promised in his 2014 election campaign to recover billions of dollars sent to tax havens abroad to avoid income tax, now about 30 percent in India.
While there is no official estimate of the amount of money illegally deposited abroad, Washington-based think-tank Global Financial Integrity has estimated India suffered $344 billion in illicit fund outflows between 2002 and 2011.
