India among best in fight with tax evasion

Zeebiz Bureau

New Delhi: The Global Forum on Tax Transparency ranks India amongst the top three countries, which are fighting to get tax evaders to book.

Talking to a private news channel, Global Forum on Tax Transparency Head Pascal Saint Amans said, in terms of real transparency, its not important to having bank accounts of all citizens make public but what matters is that the regulatory body can get the informations' assess. 

India is amongst the first three in  terms of fighting tax evasion and promoting the standards, he added.

Addressing a global conference on tax and equality on Thursday, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the opacity of tax systems in some of the jurisdictions is adding to the challenges. There has been some movement on these issues in response to the initiative by the G-20. We need to pursue this to its logical end.

Making a strong case for effectively dealing with global tax evasion, Mukherjee, quoting the global financial integrity report, said the annual illicit outflows from emerging economies and developing countries average between USD 725 billion and USD 810 billion.

Early India has slipped to 95th among 183 countries in the Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI).

While the debate continues in India over an anti-graft ombudsman, the study by the international watchdog had showed the country's image declining consistently over the past three years. This year, the country had scored 3.1 on 10, with 10 being the highest score.

Since 2007 when India was ranked 72 among 180 countries with a score of 3.5, the score has declined, so have the rankings. Last year, India was placed at 87.

The CPI ranks countries based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be and is a composite index that draws on data and studies by a number of specialised international agencies through a complex process.

India's score was a result of an average of 13 studies including World Bank's Country Performance and Institutional Assessment, World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey and Global Insight Country Risk Ratings, among others.

With the unearthing of major scams, arrests of influential people over corruption and a movement for a Lokpal stealing headlines in India, people associated with Transparency International India said since the study is a measurement of perception, these factors could have marginally contributed to the decline.