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UBS takes further fire from US department of Justice
The already damaged reputation of Swiss bank, UBS, may find itself even further tarnished after receiving notice from the US Department of Justice that demanded the names of over 50,000 US customers.
But the Swiss bank won’t roll over that easy. UBS answered with a ‘no thanks, see you in court’, maintaining that divulgence of the names would be in violation of Swiss bank secrecy laws.
The court filing said that the Internal Revenue Service “seeks the identities of those account holders (and other account information) from a Swiss bank that regularly conducted business in secret within the United States, and systematically violated US law”.
After admitting to United States tax fraud back in February, UBS agreed to pay a settlement of $780m admitting that it helped thousands of US clients use Swiss bank accounts to evade taxes.
US officials, apparently, have since had a change of heart.
UBS’ take on the situation is that, in short, while regulations in US Federal court don’t keep bank from revealing the names, Swiss laws do. UBS maintains that they are willing to work on an “appropriate solution” but breaking laws in their home country would not be considered such.
So, after settling and then pulling $780m out of the bank, why is the US still going after them?
Well, it’s like a quote I heard from a baseball player the other day:
When asked, in reference to his extravagant salary: “How much will be enough?”
He turned to the reporter and casually answered “When I have all of it”.
The US suspects 52,000 Americans of using UBS accounts to hide almost $15bn of assets and unpaid taxes.
The court hearing is scheduled for July 13.
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we should back off with this “bullying” stuff to the Swiss. very quickly all countries will see this as a precedent and start demanding of the US that we reveal the names of citizens of their countries that invest in the US, so they can tax them in their home country.
You must know that non-resident aliens and foreigners pay no capital gains or dividend taxes in the US and we don’t reveal their names because of our privacy laws.
That is why it is hipocracy for us to demand that the Swiss break their privacy laws to conform to our tax laws.
If all foreigners pull their money out of our country, our economy would crash.
Obama and his croneys should be standing up to Iran and North Korea instead of the Swiss. It doesn’t take much courage to bully a country that can’t fight back.