Indische Riesenvermögen in der Schweiz platziert

Red. Gegenüber Indien gilt die Schweizer Weissgeldpolitik nicht. Dort sind in der Schweiz platzierte Fluchtgelder ein grosses Thema. Saptarishi Dutta von der indischen Wirtschafts-Plattform Quartz zum Unmut in Indien über das Schweizer Bankgeheimnis.
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Indians have $2.1 billion in Swiss banks—or maybe it’s 600 times that
The amount of money illegally stashed away in secret Swiss bank accounts has become an emotive issue in India in the last few years. People of wide ranging persuasions have spoken out against the issue, including the anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare, Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, politician Subramanian Swamy and criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani.

Some of them have claimed that if black money stashed overseas is brought back, it can solve nearly all of India’s problems. This has wide resonance, as evidenced by numerous viral posts on social media that repeat these claims.

But nobody really knows how much money belonging to Indians are parked overseas, how much of it is illegal and how much of either is in Swiss banks.

Recently published data by the Swiss National Bank puts the amount held by Indian account holders in Swiss banks to Rs14,000 crore ($2.3 billion), an increase of 43% during 2013.

Various politicians and other groups have estimated the true value of black money stashed in Swiss accounts to be over $1 trillion.

Here is a rundown of the several estimates of the alleged black money over the years:

In an interview with Rediff in 2009, R. Vaidyanathan, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, said the total amount of Indian money kept in Swiss banks to be $45 billion, based on the Global Financial Integrity study that said average amount of illicit outflows from India stood around $27.3 billion from 2002-2006.

A study in 2011 by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has now been voted to power, estimated that around $250 billion was stashed away in various banks in Switzerland.

A news report in The Times of India in February 2012 quoted A.P. Singh, then director of the Central Bureau of Investigations, as saying that Indians hold funds worth $500 billion in tax havens with Switzerland as the most preferred destination of many tax evaders.

A white paper published by India’s finance ministry in May 2012, estimated deposits held by Indian nationals in Swiss banks at 1.94 billion Swiss francs ($2.1 billion) or Rs9,295 crore. In its report, the government mentions that from 2006, liabilities of Swiss banks towards Indians have declined.
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See also

• «India opens new front in tax evasion battle», Swissinfo 23rd June 2014

• «Steuerflucht: Auch Indien will Namen erhalten», Infosperber 7.5.2014

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