IANS

New Delhi, Sep 12: India will go for amending double taxation avoidance treaties with other countries to allow for exchange of information on tax evaders, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said here Friday.

"With a large number of countries, I have instructed my office to renegotiate the clause for exchanging information in the avoidance of double taxation agreement. This is almost with every country," Mukherjee told reporters.

This was a follow-up to a decision of the G20 leaders to "discipline" tax havens, he added.

The Swiss government has agreed to share information with other countries by revising bilateral tax treaties with interested countries. "But information will be related to only tax collection, not for any other purpose. Not even for publicity or sharing information with anybody, but (to) facilitate the tax authority to collect the taxes from the defaulters," he said.

India began the process of revising the tax treaty with Mauritius well before the financial crisis, said the minister.

"The Mauritius prime minister said that he has some problems. We have agreed to compensate him. Talks were to begin in that line," said Mukherjee.