POLITICIANS MAKE tall promises ahead of polls, but the latest vow from the BJP to bring back illicit money stashed away in Swiss banks stands out for trivialising a serious issue. 

Indians may have parked billions of dollars in secret accounts in Switzerland, but  recovering the money isn”t going to be as easy as the BJP”s prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani would have us
believe. 

To recover the money the government must have a relevant treaty with Switzerland,said Mukesh Bhutani, a tax expert and partner with consulting firm BMR & Associates. And getting a pact may  take years of diplo- macy .

The government  will also have to  bring prima facie  evidence against individuals  who, it thinks, have money in Swiss banks. There would be a  lot of specifics and nuances of international law that  will have to be addressed, Bhutani said.

“A blanket approach conveying the sense that it is a witchhunt may not work,” said Dev Kar, lead  economist at theGlobal Financial Integrity (GFI)project of Washington-based .

Center for International Policy “In Western countries, one”s  privacy is a sacred cow,” said Kar, who is the author of what could be the only academic paper in recent times on illicit  financial  outflows from devel oping countries. He said, “The  Indian government will have to do its homework. It”s not going   to be a cakewalk.”

But homework seems to be something Advani and his party   seem to have done  little of.

Advani”s first press statement on the issue on March 29 cited   Wikipedia as the source for the estimate of money lying in Swiss accounts. He also cited some other estimates he called  “credible”. According to those, Indian money in Swiss banks  and other tax havens range  between $500 billion (Rs 25 lakh crore) and $1.4 trillion (Rs 70 lakh crore).

But the truth is: there are no such”credible estimates”. A taskforce set up byAdvani to draw a 

strategy to recover the money attrib uted the figures to newspaper reports, which, in turn, quoted
no source. As it turns out, the top-end figure is traced to a chain of hoax mails that began
sometime last year. They attrib uted the figure to the Swiss Banking Association, whereas
no such organisation exists. 

In a interview to Rediff.com, R. Vaidyanathan, a professor at the Indian Institute ofManagement and  a member of   Advani”s  task force, backed the  $1.4-trillion figure, saying it was
a probable number based on the  findings of Kar”s GFI study The   study estimated that the aver age annual outflow from India ranged between $22.7 billion  and $27.3 billion during 2002-06  but isn”t sure if the numbers could be extrapolated for other years. Besides getting its facts wrong, experts said, the BJP task force offered very few concrete steps.

As a result, an issue of national interest is now being dubbed  as a political gimmick.The  Congress has tried to deflect the matter by questioning the credibility of Advani”s estimate.

SOURCE:  http://epaper.hindustantimes.com//artMailDisp.aspx?article=22_04_2009_011_009&typ=1&pub=47