R.T.Sakthidaran

Chronological Events:

1^st July 2008:

The Internal Revenue Services (IRS) of USA filed a case No.09-60033-CR-COHN against the largest bank of Switzerland, “”UBS AG” (UBS) for the bank’s fraudulent activities in the US District Court, Southern District of Florida.

19^th February 2009:

UBS signed a “Deferred Prosecution Agreement” with USA and UBS agreed on eleven points including revealing 20,000 secret accounts.

30^th April 2009:

UBS asked a U.S. court to reject demands by U.S. tax authorities for confidential information about its American clients, saying disclosure would violate Switzerland’s bank secrecy laws.

19^th August 2009:

Obama and his government made UBS and Swiss government to come to an agreement. According to this agreement, UBS will disclose the names of approximately 4,450 American account holders suspected by the IRS of evading taxes. In return, the U.S. Justice Department will withdraw its lawsuit against the banking giant and stop demanding the names of 52,000 Americans accused of hiding assets in offshore accounts.

13^th June 2010:

According to Reuters News , Swiss authorities have already handed over 500 accounts of UBS clients to the United States. Around 2,900 files had already been prepared for handover and 1,550 more accounts were still being processed, Swiss paper Sonntag reported. “Client dossiers were transferred to the United States in around 500 of the 2,900 cases.” The Swiss lower house rejected the agreement (30^th April 2009 situation) on Tuesday, triggering a new parliamentary debate next week and delaying a final decision on whether to allow the government to hand over a total of 4,450 UBS client accounts to U.S. authorities.

All this is going on to get back $20 billion (Rs 1,00,000 Cr) undisclosed money in foreign banks. Now imagine $1456 billion (Rs 72,80,000 Cr) undisclosed money of India in Swiss Banks. Don’t you think that we should be more serious than US authorities. Indian stashed money is 72 times that of US.

India’s 2010-2011 Annual Budget

The gross receipt (both tax and non-tax) is Rs. 8,94,769 Cr

The total expenditure proposed is Rs. 11,08,749 Cr

The entire Government of India with a President, Prime Minister and a cabinet of ministers and officials manage this amount. Don’t you think to manage a sum that is 7 times that of India’s revenue, we need at least “A Ministry to Recover Stashed Money”. We can have an exclusive and full time Associate Prime Minister, 2 Cabinet Ministers, 4 State Ministers and other secretariat to work full time with total authority so that the stashed money is brought to India from where ever it is and also get the list of persons involved in those transactions. We can even request “President Barack Obama” to be our Advisor. I am confident he would not refuse. Try India!

Jai Hind

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