New Delhi, Aug. 28: India and Germany have agreed to upgrade their double-taxation avoidance agreement (DTAA) to incorporate the latest global norms relating to the exchange of tax-related information to curb black money.

India's revenue secretary Shaktikanta Das and German state secretary Johannes Geismann had met in Berlin last week to review the two countries' framework of information exchange in the context of the protocols discussed by the G20 leadership. Late tonight, Das was appointed economic affairs secretary.

The two sides have agreed to continue to exchange information on the basis of existing agreements, while exploring the possibilities of increasing the scope of their collaboration.

In recent meetings, the G20 leaders have agreed on a real-time exchange of information on suspicious transactions, shady bank accounts and other methods of fraud among member countries.

The global group of 20 major economies, including Germany and India, is planning to implement the exchange system from 2017.

A finance ministry statement said, "As signatories to the multilateral competent authority agreement regarding the automatic exchange of information on financial accounts, Germany and India will begin negotiations as soon as possible towards a memorandum of understanding, laying out the technical details of automatic information exchange on financial accounts."

Deal deadline

Indian and German officials would meet again here in September to thrash out a final version of the revised tax pact.

The deal is expected to be signed by the end of this calendar year. Officials said changes to the existing DTAA were discussed with Berlin four years back but without much progress.

India has signed the avoidance of double taxation treaties with around 88 countries, majority of which have clauses that call upon both the sides to share information with each other on tax fraud and other financial irregularities.

However, most such agreements are based on the OECD's model tax convention that prohibits the public naming of suspected tax offenders till investigations have been completed and cases brought before the courts of law. Otherwise, naming the suspects could tantamount to violating their rights or prejudicing public opinion against them.

Some of the 88 signatories are not even independent countries, such as St Kitts, Virgin Islands and Isle of Mann.