France provides India with information on black money

Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has revealed that his government has received information from France about 4 billion rupees (80 million U.S. dollars) unaccounted money in 69 overseas accounts of Indians and had recovered 300 million rupees (6 million U.S. dollars) in taxes from them, reported The Times of India daily Thursday. Briefing economic editors of Indian media on Wednesday, the minister said with the help of Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) with France, India was able to extract some information regarding Indians having bank accounts, said he newspaper. He said the government's efforts on black money were paying results. So far, specific requests in 333 cases were made by authorities for obtaining information from foreign jurisdictions. "Over 9,900 pieces of information regarding suspicious transactions by Indian citizens from several countries have been obtained which are now under different stages of processing and investigation," he was quoted as saying. India has also signed an agreement with Switzerland to exchange information on tax avoidance which might help New Delhi trace black money stashed in the Alpine banking kingdom.