India has signed a multilateral agreement with 31 other countries to promote co-operation between tax authorities, coming as the latest show of the country’s ongoing efforts to stamp out tax evasion.

India has signed a multilateral agreement with 31 other
countries to ensure administrative co-operation between tax authorities, coming
as the latest show of the country’s no tolerance stance against tax evasion.

The Convention On Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters is a deal which promotes international administrative co-operation in the assessment and collection of taxes, while respecting
the rights of taxpayers, said the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development in a statement.

The agreement is the OECD's latest step towards combating tax
avoidance and evasion. With taxpayers increasingly working and living globally, tax authorities are moving from bilateral to multilateral
cooperation and from exchange of information on request to other forms of
co-operation.

By signing the convention, the OECD hopes that India and the other 31 signatories will encourage more countries to join, sending a strong signal that countries are
acting together to ensure that individuals and enterprises pay
the right amount of tax, at the right time and in the right place.

“India has moved very quickly since its commitment to the convention at the November G20 ceremony in Cannes and I expect it will be the
first non-OECD G20 country for which the updated Convention is in force”, said
Jeffrey Owens, director of the OECD Centre for tax policy and administration. 

Signatories to the amended convention are: Argentina,
Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany,
Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Moldova,
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain,
Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

It is the latest sign
of India stepping up pressure on tax evaders. A report published by the
OECD after the G20
summit in November, showed that India more than doubled its requests to obtain
classified funds information from tax havens and other countries in the last
two years.

During the last two
years India has negotiated 19 new double taxation avoidance agreements and 17
new tax information exchange agreements. It recently teamed up with the US' Internal Revenue Service to train an India-based team on the intricacies of unearthing hidden funds. 

India became a
full-member of global economic body the Financial Action Task Force last year
and strengthened its Financial Intelligence Unit to detect suspicious transactions
in economic channels, which will also help its relationships with other global
governments.

"A very
significant proportion of investment flowing into India, Russia and China is
routed through low tax jurisdictions," the report said, adding that India
is "actively participating" in the global efforts to enhance
cooperation between tax authorities and law enforcement agencies to filter out
financial crimes and illicit flows.

In November the
Paris-based think-tank said that a tougher crackdown on tax evasion by the
world's richest individuals could raise as much as $100 billion in tax revenue
for cash-strapped governments. A survey of 20 countries conducted by the OECD showed that
measures to deter tax evasion have paid off - raising over $19 billion within
the past two years.