Case Law Details
Information under article 28 of DTAA cannot be disclosed on the basis of un-signed transfer requests of Indian national to a Swiss Bank to transfer money to overseas bank accounts of two foreign companies.
The Indian tax authority seized documents from an Indian national which were believed to indicate the existence of undeclared income deposited in a company’s bank accounts in Singapore. Pursuant to Article 28 (1) of the India-Singapore DTAA, the Indian tax authority sent a request for information to its Singapore counterpart (the Comptroller of Income-tax). In support of the request, the Indian tax authority relied on unsigned transfer instructions allegedly issued by the Indian national as evidence that the Indian national remitted monies to the Singapore Company’s bank accounts. The Comptroller filed an application in the High Court u/s 105J of the Singapore Income-tax Act for an order requiring the bank to produce the company’s bank records.
HELD dismissing the application:
Article 28(1) of the Agreement as amended by the Second Protocol provides that “the Contracting States shall exchange such information as is forseeeably relevant for carrying out the provisions of [the Agreement] or to the administration or enforcement of the domestic laws concerning taxes… imposed on behalf of the Contracting States …” [emphasis added]. Section 105J(1) of the ITA imposes two other conditions:
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