India to withdraw order suspending tax benefits on Cyprus

05 Dec 2013 Evaluate

A month after India had unilaterally put Cyprus in the 'notified jurisdictional area' category’ for not sharing information about tax dodgers, the tax haven island nation has agreed to exchange information and amend the tax treaty between the two. The ban on the Cyprus is apparently about to be lifted after the delegations of the two countries decided to adopt the provisions of the new Article 26 of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development's Model Tax Convention (approved by the OECD Council on July 17, 2012) relating to exchange of information in a new tax treaty between the two countries.

However, India stands to gain with this as Article 26 of OECD's model tax treaty is very stringent and reduces the scope for not providing information on the ground that it is a mere 'fishing expedition' by authorities of the country making such a request. Moreover, Article 26 also provides for a timeline within which the information should be provided. Further, the two countries also agreed to improve channels of communication and facilitate each other in processing requests and responses.

However, the Cyprus government in its statement date December 3 underscored that the agreement comes with a rider that once its notification as a “notified jurisdictional area” under Section 94A of the Indian Income-tax Act 1961 is annulled; it will be with retrospective effect from November 1, when the notification was issued.

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