The US Treasury Department has issued a list of 34 countries which includes India with whom it would share information under FATCA (foreign account tax compliance act) regulations. The pact aims to cover automatic sharing of information on bank accounts and other instruments like mutual funds, insuranceand equities with each other. This is aimed at fighting the black money or unaccounted money.

The announcement comes days after the Narendra Modi in US signed an agreement with the US authorities recently. The anti-offshore tax evasion and black money detention pact was signed between India and the US. The act became operational from September 30th.

Other countries named by the US Treasury Department list include Luxembourg, New Zealand, South Africa and Brazil. The new list includes 16 new countries which were added to the original list of countries with which the US already has the arrangement.

As of now, under FATCA, the US is obliged to share only interest payment related information with the Indian side. On its part, India is currently required to share information around the account value (balances) maintained by US citizens in Indian banks and custodians (value of securities’ balances) besides the gross sale proceeds in a year. Information around interest, dividend payouts made to US citizens would also need to be provided under the Inter-Governmental agreement signed with the US earlier this year.

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