"Posting orders in respect of officers to be posted to the newly created ITOUs in Indian missions at Cyprus, France, Germany, Netherlands, UAE, UK and USA have been issued and posting order in respect of officer to be posted to Japan will be issued shortly," Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha today.
At present, such officers are already posted in Mauritius and Singapore. "Tax officers at the level of First Secretary are being posted to ITOUs in Indian Missions abroad to maintain effective coordination and liaison between Indian tax authorities and the tax authorities of countries concerned," Palanimanickam said.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Budget 2012-13 had made a sizeable allocation for setting up these I-T overseas offices. While the initial budgetary allocation for these units was Rs 2.41 crore in the last fiscal, it has been raised to Rs 18.20 crore in the current year.
The ITOUs would obtain information on tax and financial data of investments made by individuals and institutions in these countries and facilitate any data on investment or routing of money in the country and vice-versa. The government has already commissioned a study by three national-level institutes to estimate the quantum of black money in India and abroad.
Besides, another committee under the CBDT Chairman was set up to give suggestions to check generation of black money and its laundering. The committee submitted its report to the government last month.