India Seeks Swiss Help in Probing Preneet Kaur and Son’s Bank A/c

The Swiss Federal Tax Administration also asked Kaur and Singh to file an appeal within 10 days.

Preneet Kaur, former MoS for External Affairs. (Photo: Reuters)

As Indian tax authorities continue their probe into Swiss bank accounts of several citizens. On Monday, Switzerland said India has sought assistance in the investigations into accounts allegedly held by former Congress minister Preneet Kaur and her son Raninder Singh.

As per the Swiss norms for ‘assistance’ in tax matters, the Federal Tax Administration (FTA) of Switzerland also asked Kaur and Singh to file an appeal within 10 days for “exercise of the right to be heard”.

The Swiss tax department has made these disclosures in two separate notifications published in the Switzerland government’s federal gazette on Monday. The notifications did not disclose further details about the two, except for their nationality and dates of birth. No immediate comments could be obtained from Kaur and her son.

Earlier when her name had come up in a leaked HSBC list, Kaur had denied having any account in her name with any foreign bank. She had also said that her statement was recorded earlier by the tax authorities, but she was not shown any document which might indicate having a foreign bank account or a trust.

Names of several Indians and other foreign nationals have been disclosed following growing global pressure on Switzerland to crack down on its famed banking secrecy practices amid suspicion on these accounts being used to park illicit wealth.

This is the latest in a series of such disclosures made by the FTA about information requests from India and other countries with which Switzerland has mutual assistance treaties in tax-related cases.

As part of its bilateral treaty for administrative assistance and exchange of information with Switzerland, India has sought details about numerous individuals and companies.

Over a dozen Indian names have been disclosed so far. Many other requests are pending with the Swiss authorities who conduct their own due diligence before starting the process of sharing the information.